How can something so real and sharp in my mind fade away so quickly.  I remember the dreams edges, the corners and sharp moments stand out still.  I remember a building, like an abandoned restaurant, or a food hall.  Chairs and chairs stacked against the wall.  The place looked like it was brand new, and abandoned forever.  It had tables around the center of the large open room, and non of them had any signs of being used.  They were so old though, and worn looking, but not worn from use.  The building seemed like it was slumping over, and yet, it didn’t look like anything was out of place.  It didn’t visibly slump.  It only looked like it had given up, and was almost sloped downward.

The people, i can’t remember them.  I know there were people there, shapes or fabric.  Forms moving.  At the time i thought they were deamons, or some sort of creation of fire and smoke.  Now though I can’t remember at all what they were.  What they looked like, or sounded like.  I remember the smell though.  Funny that would linger in my mind when so much faded away so quickly.  It reminded me of dry books, the paper smell of a bookstore, but not a good bookstore where the paper is moved, and the books are loved and used.  This reminded me of a place where books were heaped up and left to dry rot away.  But the smell was also too hot.  Hot in a way that didn’t make sense.  Like the books were about to catch fire.  Something like that and dust.  Dust and heat.

So how exactly can this be, where i see something that is so real one moment, and fades away into the distance the next.  It doesn’t make any sense to me.  I know it means something.  I can’t remember the holes, even though they seemed so critical at the time.  When i woke up, i could see the holes, and the deep dark, and the fire.  Now i can’t remember if they were really there.  If i remembered them, and then forgot them, do i still remember them?  Or were they never there to remember in the first place.

I guess all of this is just a way to distract myself that the knock never happened again.  One single human sound is so much more painful than silence.  It means maybe someone is here?  Outside these walls, away from my bed.  Out in the world beyond here that I can’t seem to see or gain any access to.  Why one knock?  What were they signalling.  Why didn’t i hear anything other than that single noise, and then where did it go from there.  How long have I been listening as hard as i have.  How long have i laid here waiting for the sound to repeat.  It makes me think of a rabbit in the woods, frozen in place when it hears a crack of a breaking branch.  Straining to hear something, anything, that will let it know what is coming.  The odd thing is though that I don’t feel any fear.  No fear of the sound, or whatever made it.  Just wonder and curiosity.  I just need to see what it was and where it came from.  Something to break up the dreaming.