I have not actually been sleeping these past few days. It's a pattern: when the hottest nights of the year arrive, sleep goes away, and I walk around for days in an altered state, feeling giddy, thinking in symbols, not language, and feeling like I'm on the brink of big changes.

All you folks who reliably sleep through the night have no idea how much time there is in a week. To pass the time, I have been plowing through a compulsively readable science fiction series (CJ Cherryh's Foreigner books - so far, 3 books in as many weeks). Now I'm walking around in two universes at the same time. When I leave my apartment, I have to remind myself of where and when I am. I confuse the names of real places with fictional ones. I feel sad to be all alone with my monumental nerdiness.

Maybe I'll try being a writer again ...

Bridge Crossings

... in which I explore two divergent ways to cross a bridge.

One: Two supervillains an a hovercar speed away from the scene of the crime, laughing evilly. Ahead, a huge bridge is just beginning to open to let boats through, but the villains gun the engine and sail right over. Just as one of them notices that battery power is getting low on the hovercar, the other suddenly remembers something they left behind, so they turn around and head back towards the bridge. It's fully open, a pillar of iron towering to a great height, but our supervillains are too important to wait. They speed up, fly vertically up the bridge deck, hover over the chasm in the middle, and, engine sputtering, make a rough landing on the other side.

Two: A rickety wooden bridge in a forest is cared for by two elderly people. The bridge has been in disrepair for many years and no-one has been able to cross it, but now, some younger people are there to help fix it. They start by fencing off the edges for safety. They acknowledge that the repairs will take some time, but that they will do it safely and with joy in their work.