This morning was one of those days where wakefulness was like a slap in the face. The feeling of loneliness after being jettisoned from dreaming was so intense, so palpable in the way it bore slamming down on my body, as if it was sprawled in the armchair with a jeering grin.

So yesterday's bottle of wine drank to a two hour clip of summer night ambiance may not have been the best of ideas. Then again, I've had worse ones.

So I'm sitting in the kitchen, browsing the net. Maybe I get lost in thought, or maybe I'm captivated by the afternoon sunlight gliding over the red, brick buildings out the window. Maybe it's something else entirely. At some point the computer screen fades and shuts down. Some energy saver subroutine kicks in and the OS takes certain steps to conserve power. As the screen faded into a black mirror I saw my reflection and didn't recognize it. You know how you look at someone else's face? And I mean really look. Not some passing glance on the street, or a dead eyed stare in the city bus. I started tracing the contours of my face, as if seeing them for the first time. the cheekbones, the eyebrows. Sagging eyelids, frozen in a perpetually half-sad expression. Mimic wrinkles growing from the alas of my nose round the corners of my mouth. Lips twisted in a frown, cracked in places from the cold. Three day stubble. When did I become a total stranger?

4:57a.m. and I'm hunting ghosts. Nothing really disappears on the Internet. Ever.

Dream

I dreamt about a log cabin in a mountain forest during winter. I don't know where. It was day, morning after a blizzard. I had to traverse waist deep snowbanks to get to the door. No one inside, but clearly not abandoned. The furnishing was rustic. Wooden chairs, a heavy rough-hewn wooden table, coarse stone mantlepiece over a crackling fireplace. Animal skin rugs littered the floor. I put water on in a cast iron kettle and started to look for coffee. After a time ■ came in. ■ aged well. Said ■ email address was ■.■@gmail.com. I don't remember details of the conversation.
After I woke up I looked it up and came up empty. No hits.