the dark tower draws near

i'm nearing the end of stephen king's fractal, self-referential magnum opus, "the dark tower". the seventh and final book is a recapitulation of the pattern of all the books before, and it is, in my opinion, head and shoulders better than any of them. like any good story, it is invading my consciousness.

a couple of nights past, when it was especially hot in the bedroom, we had a fan set up and no comforter. throughout the night, the bedsheets would be blown about a centimeter up, then fall down again as the waves of hot air were blown toward the bed by the fan. i slept restlessly, and had a nightmare.

normally when i have a bad dream, it tends to creep up on me slowly, developing from a "normal" dream into a "bad" dream with such lack of subtlety that my sleeping overmind can take control, and either laugh in the face of my subconscious and turn things pleasant again, or, more frequently, demand that i wake up and end the nonsense. but this dream was quite different. i was in the middle of a "good" or at least "boring" dream, and then suddenly, with no warning at all, i was context-switched into the intensely vivid experience that the bedsheet was suspended four feet above the bed, and descending upon me to envelop me, and kill me, and drag me into some stephen king nightmare of malevolent, unrelenting, and totally enveloping evil.

(by the way, the use of the word "envelop" twice in one sentence, an affront to the language which i am normally staunchly guarded against, is meant as a tribute to master king. har har har.)

the whole experience lasted only a second or two, much shorter than the normal bad dream, providing me no time to shut things down. instead i fought back, punching and kicking at the descending cottony killer, and awoke with a start to find myself delivering perhaps the hardest kick i've ever inflicted on another human straight on to the shin of hops, sleeping next to me. she took things rather well, and seemed much less startled by it than i. i apologized profusely, hoped i hadn't broken anything, and went back to sleep.

the next morning, she told me i had punched her, too.

anyhow, i highly recommend the dark tower. it is invasive, in a good way, as long as you're not sharing a bed with me.