I really can’t get enough of this cliffhanger.

This is the kind of situation I’m always afraid I’ll find myself in if I don’t pay attention. This is what my nightmares are like. His look at the end, there — that self-realization. On top of the confused, not altogether intentional comedy there’s a layer of existential terror. I remember a discussion with my phenomenology professor at Orono, where she described her fear of railings, lest she happen to fling herself over them. Not that she wanted to; that was the point!

It’s not exactly the same, but when I was maybe six I dreamed that my older sister and I were walking along a ledge above a deep chasm, and I knew that if she kept telling jokes we’d fall. I tried to tell her that, but she, well, laughed it off. And we fell, and I died. That lacks the crucial lack of self possession on my part, but the logic is similarly surreal.

I keep hearing that, for some reason, you can’t die in dreams. I wonder who made up that rule, because I’ve been dying since I was little. Usually with a loud crunch, and a sharp pain, and darkness. Then things move on…