I’m almost running to the arts building now. Why on earth didn’t I think of this sooner?

The double doors of the main entrance to the arts building are propped open, which means it’s load-in for Charlotte Sometimes: The Musical. Ms. Silverthorn loves a big set, and Mrs. Somboon-Fox loves the woodshop kids to feel included, so no school play budget is ever too big. This year they’re transforming the stage (big, airy, modern) into an old British school from 1918. Though the script only says it’s set in a boarding school, which probably means wood and wallpaper, Ms. Silverthorn has decided to make it look more post–World War I industrial. So lots of black and white and shadow to capitalize on the art teacher being all about chiaroscuro this term.

She is onstage, her arms raised like someone in a flight crew directing an airplane to a gate. Backlit by stage lights, she is pure silhouette, and I see only the motion: come this way. She is not summoning me, but someone behind me. I turn, too late, to see who.

Four of the strongest kids in school struggle under the weight of a huge beam intended for the set. As they navigate the raked slope of the auditorium, their sweating hands cannot restrain the beam, which becomes kinetic. Their eyes widen in terror at the prospect not of dropping the beam but of launching it—onto me.

You know how I adjust really, really fast to my circumstances? This time my body betrays me. I freeze. Like the proverbial deer in headlights, I’m confused by the image of this enormous missile heading my way—my brain overloads with a million thoughts at once.

Is this really happening? Can I outrun it? Why am I not running?

This is going to hurt.

And then—

The Past/Future Tense

The Past/Future Tense

My head throbs so much I’m afraid to open my eyes, knowing the stage lights will be like an instant migraine delivery system.

A brass section is playing “Eye of the Tiger” with a rowdy percussion riff between verses. I cover my ears because the sound is making this headache worse, until a new thought pierces the fog. We don’t have a marching band.

Gingerly opening first one eye and then the other, I discover something even more surprising: Sky. As in, above me, a beautiful blue sky, wide and clear of clouds almost to the horizon. The stage crew has knocked me clear outside.

Sitting up, I am stiff at first, as if I have lain here for days. Vertigo seizes me. I can’t see the arts building, so where am I? I don’t remember anything after impact—what happened next when I left the building, or how I ended up here.

And then I realize something important: I don’t actually know where here is.