May 9, 2001

When I was single-digit age, I had a terrible fever. I lay in my bunk bed watching the red and blue patterns on the ceiling. The air felt thick like syrup, except bitter. I looked down (I was on the top bunk) and watched the ground recede from sight. Ordinary objects, such as a ball, or a lego fort, loomed large over me. I had shrunk to the size of an ant. The far wall, the door out, vanished into the red and blue static, which slowly moved closer and closer.

Keeping a fearful eye on the "static", I clambered down the ladder, ignoring the temptation to look down, knowing there would not be a floor. I tried to wake my brother. I shook him and whispered his name. He refused to wake.

I climbed back up to my bed, and lay awake all night watching the static and the giant toys, waiting for them to strike.

Ever since then, I've been intimidated by oversized pencils and combs.

...

I find that sometimes I recede like that during times of emotional stress. The room stretches away until I feel tiny in a tunnel, peering up at the walls and people. It reminds me either of time dilation, or that scene in Trainspotting where Renton falls into the carpet.

I found myself submerged last week in the middle of a conversation. Something my friend said brought up some bad memories and there I was, like a puppet walking to the car and sitting in the passenger seat, completely lost. I could have been dropped off in the middle of West Oakland, and I wouldn't have objected.

Days afterward I stared at the ceiling zooming off into the stratosphere. The pits and cracks of the roof formed waving clouds. It was more pronounced at night, with no shadow or color to give any depth. Sometimes I felt like I was falling. Those nights I had to turn on the light to remind myself I was still on earth.

No wonder I get insomnia so often.