I’ve been suffering insomnia for a while now, waking up anytime between 2:30 and 5:30 (with the target being rising at 6:00) and not being able to fall back to sleep. I’m beginning to think I may as well start planning to actually make use of the time, since I’m up anyway, rather than just puttering about and waiting for the son rise (when he gets up to get ready for school).

Last night, woke up at 2:30. I had maybe three and a half hours sleep.

This morning, gravity dragged at me like I was on Jupiter. My son, Nathaniel, and I always read for an hour in the morning, and I could barely keep my eyes open. This is all made even more ironic by the fact that the main book I’m reading at the moment is Insomnia by Stephen King. (And no, the problem didn’t start when I started the book).

Once Nathaniel headed to school, I flopped onto the couch and fell asleep. And I dreamed…

…I can’t recall much about the situation…various people I know were at a school or a mall or, I don’t know, some sort of underground base…

I do remember that I was trying to meet folks who could review or otherwise help promote my book (huh, wonder where that came from)…

There was also some sort of lurking threat, like something buried or trapped underground. I think maybe it was down a passage we planned to take, and there was an argument in the group (me, my son, and I don’t recall who else) that it was too dangerous. So we opted to go the longer way around, aboveground.

Up top, we made our way across a landscape full of debris. Construction of some kind was going on. And there was a huge chasm off to the right, three or four hundred feet deep.

We walked close to the edge, peering in. And Nathaniel squatted near the brink, on some cardboard that was part of the general clutter of the world around us.

And I noticed his feet were on a part of the cardboard that actually hung slightly over the edge. And the board started to slip in the loose dirt.

I cried out for him to get back, but it happened too fast. His feet slipped with the cardboard, and he fell.

I landed on my belly at chasm’s edge, grabbing for him.

And I caught the collar of his shirt.

I hauled him back up, over the edge, onto solid ground. And I just lost it, overcome from the surge of terror and the sweet release of joy that I’d saved him, wrapping him in my arms, rolling back and forth, kissing the top of his head and crying harder than I’ve ever cried in my life…

The emotion was so strong, it woke me. I could feel adrenaline buzzing in my veins, but the happiness that I’d saved my son in the dream lingered.

Happiness that he’s alive.