The barrier is a smoky gray and like glass. It’s never-ending, reaching down as far as I can see, and no edges to it are visible to my left or right or above me.

I don’t know what happened just now. I cannot remember having opened my eyes or waking up. Dark, turbulent depths gape beneath my feet. It’s as if something far below was propelling me upward and is now pressing me against an obstacle whose origins and nature I cannot discern.

It has no tangible surface, and yet it stretches as taut as skin above me. I float within touching distance of its underside, which hovers like a coffin lid over my head. I’m so thirsty, and I struggle for air.

I can feel myself breathing. Air flows into my lungs but is then sucked out of them again, leaving me constantly short of breath.

Then I spot them, on the other side of the glass. Shadows coalesce into men and women in blue or purple trousers and shirts going about their mysterious business.

“Hello! Please, I’m thirsty!”

Nobody hears me.

“Hello!” I cry. “Please, over here!”

They pay no attention to me whatsoever.

It is a continually shifting landscape of people and shadows. Intermittently, for a few short, jerky moments, the scene comes into focus, and I glimpse neon tubes, walls, and machines, but nowhere the blue brightness of day or the pitch-blackness of night.

Someone moves my arms and legs—at least I think they’re my arms and legs. I recognize my own hand by the familiar colorful band on my wrist. I try to waggle my forefinger, but I don’t succeed. I can’t feel a single part of my body. It’s as if I consist exclusively of water and darkness, with my thoughts swimming in circles on the surface.

I can feel the air, though. I can make out the electrical odor of machines and the reek of smoke clinging to the hair of the men and women. I can sense the crackle of thoughts. I feel as if I’m a silent island surrounded by a sea of other people’s thoughts. These alien thoughts come from the figures leaning over me, and they glance off me like marbles.

I don’t know why I’m doing this. It makes no sense.

I could simply stay here tonight.

I can’t put up with another night when she doesn’t even look at me.

How about I make a salad rather than steaming some vegetables? Salad’s a negative-calorie food. Or maybe I’ll have a tiny piece of chocolate after all . . .

I’m working too hard. It must end sometime.