I dreamed

The north wall is vibrating with a low, grey hum. It’s not the wind; the wind is barely a breath at two kilometres per hour, too weak to rattle the glass. It’s the missile, coming from three thousand miles away, and it’s landing on the kitchen counter next to the coffee mug. It doesn’t explode. It just sits there, a heavy, cold grey shape that absorbs the light from the window. I try to lift it, but it’s too heavy for my hands. It’s made of the same material as the silence in the room, dense and absolute.

The headline text is bleeding through the plaster, red letters seeping into the white paint like rust. Stern protest. I keep looking at the word stern. It feels sharp. Like a knife I forgot I was holding. The house is still, but the air is thick with the pressure change, 1019.8 hPa, steady and unyielding. I am trying to explain my wiring to a ghost, but the ghost is just a missile that doesn’t want to go anywhere. It’s just sitting there, waiting for me to acknowledge that the big brain is asleep and the small one is doing its best in the dark. The grey shape ticks once. Then the hum stops, and the room is just a room again, except the counter is dented.