I feel sudden, acute pains, as if I’m being run through with a spear. They crush my heart, burn and singe and scorch me. The agony of it makes me want to scream. It is my lack of all bodily sensation that’s splitting and tearing me apart—and this impenetrable barrier.

I must be asleep, but very soon I’ll wake up. All I need to do is wake up.

A fragrance assails my nostrils—the aroma of a mild summer’s evening on the coast of Brittany, redolent with jasmine, pancakes, salt, and caramel.

Oh my darling! For an instant the pains soften. Any moment now I’m going to wake up, and Eddie will be by my side. My darling Eddie. I’m filled with such love and then such yearning, followed by a deep and plaintive sense of loss and a horrible feeling of shame. I used to be with her. I was once at the dawn of life. I was once immortal. Now I’m dead, or as good as. And I’m not asleep. Oh no, I’m not asleep—I’m almost dead! That’s the truth. Or is it?

A crackle of fear. A hum of tiredness, like a drowsy bumblebee. A flicker of worry, like a defective neon tube.

What is this? Where am I? In a bed? This bed is somewhere in a world from which I’m gradually fading, having already lost my arms, my legs, my body, and my voice. The people on the other side of the glass ignore me, even when I call out to them. I might as well be invisible to them.

How did I get here? Suddenly a memory looms before me, opening like an enormous door through which I could hurry back the way I’ve come.

“I love you,” said Eddie. “I want you, forever and beyond, in this life and every other.”

“I don’t want you,” I replied, shattering our relationship. I broke our relationship, as Eddie’s expression turned to ice.

The black silence beneath is pulling at me, dragging me back down.

“No,” I yell. “No!” I haven’t yet drunk my fill of this woman—nowhere near! I have to let her know that I was lying!

My heart aches more and more with every beat. It’s the only part of me that continues to respond as I weep bitter tears of fear and horror and pain at this disembodied nightmare in which I’m trapped.

“Here,” I call, straining every nerve. Someone must hear me, surely! “Please! I’m here!”