When I got back to my car I noticed I had a 100-shekel parking ticket and started laughing, vowing never to forget that life without parking officers had its advantages. I drove the whole way back with the radio cranked up high, trying to think as little as possible.

I parked by the B&B and stayed in the car for a few minutes, gazing out at the red hill. I felt I needed to scream, to vent all my frustration, but I didn’t want Nabil or Shira to hear me so I settled for slamming my fists against the dashboard. Then I switched off the engine and entered the B&B.

13.

NOT LONG AGO I came across a study that might explain everything that happened to me that day with Nicolai. The study showed a few people photos from their childhood and asked them to think back and remember where each photo was taken. The thing is, one of those photos was doctored. The subjects were photoshopped into a hot-air balloon—a completely fabricated experience. The first time the subjects were asked about the photo, almost all of them replied they couldn’t remember when it was taken. But when they were asked again a few days later, some had already concocted a whole story about that day in the hot-air balloon. They were so certain of their memory that even after they were told the photo was fabricated, some of them swore it was them in that balloon.

I guess I actually hadn’t heard anything about dream-sharing technology at Lucid, but I was so desperate I needed something to cling to.

I think it happened to me twice that day. In hindsight, replaying the events in my mind, I can swear that when I sat in the car, I actually did see her, walking behind the sheep. That I was so busy beating myself up, I simply hadn’t been paying enough attention. I’ll never know whether that memory is true or not, but in any event, one thing I do know—when I walked into her room, Shira was no longer there.