It was only the following morning that —
even through the thick haze of a huge hangover (
and not just the physical kind
) —
I was made aware of the huge bubble of comfort and safety
I spent a lifetime taking completely for
granted.
Waking from a quick and very
heavy
sleep
proved the horrific events of the previous day were no dream or even
NIGHTMARE
, nor
were they any longer a fiction so extreme as to be well beyond concern.
“The world has changed.” Sure — but what “world?”
Which world is false? Which one functions or do I try to function in?
It wasn’t until early that Wednesday, with the fraught and anxious
beginnings of “processing,” that what I long believed was
real became unreal. Forever unreal
.
And it wasn’t until that day after that the unthinkable — even twenty-one years later and unbelievable
— renders still wholly, and unfortunately, thinkable.