How do people do this? I remember in AP History, we had to do a project on, like, primary sources, and I read a bunch of personal diaries from ye olden times and how did people write so linearly? “I woke up and then this happened and now here’s my entire conversation with my comrade and also every single dollar I spent on mead today.” My brain doesn’t work like that. It’s always thinking of a hundred things overlapping at once, and then a hundred more things bubbling underneath all of that. I think that’s why I like cooking. It’s straightforward in the sense that it has a sequence and, especially in a professional kitchen like Milton, it can be downright militaristic in its precision, but it’s also the perfect sport for the multitasking brain. You have to keep track of so many things at once—timings of what’s on the stove, in the oven, what needs to be plated, making sure everything’s seasoned properly, making sure everything is going to come out the perfect temperature. Working in a kitchen rewards my scattershot thinking and lightning-quick attention jumps.

Anyway. My dream.

I was back in that black, impossibly lit place. The floorless, endless void that sometimes has a doorway I still haven’t been able to access. I woke up in the dream—I’m not sure how long I was there, but nothing was chasing me this time. I woke up and was just … there. Just standing. And there was this eerily beautiful hum, like siren song, like hearing a choir from very far away. The humming grew and suddenly I could move and I looked around and, off in the distance, there was a figure. Tall, wiry, pointy elbows. A figure I’d recognize anywhere. Even though I could turn my body to look at him, I still couldn’t step my feet forward. So I called out his name, shouting “Aaron” and his head turned sharply my way, like it was a shock that I was there. Even though, thinking about it now, it wasn’t a shock to me that he was there. It was like I woke up in the dream ready to find him. I was about to open my mouth again, call out louder, when I had a feeling like I was being kicked in the chest, and was sent hurtling backward through the black.