it was late, i know, far too late for me to be up, listening to dark ambient scores on youtube, & having just one more beer.  i was feeling good & calm.  my house is an extension of my body.  when i move thru it, even at this late of an hour, it feels like another limb.  & yet, i got up to take a piss.  the house felt normal, looked normal.  i went from room to room making sure the lights were all off.  i looked out the front window.  i could hear the oceanic rush of the nearby freeway.  whether it be one pm or one am there are always vehicles on that freeway.  somehow, it is a comforting noise.  but i've been ill.  i have a cold.  so for the last three nights i've made a pallet on the couch.  i am usually the last person to go to bed in my house.  i am by nature a night owl.  normal bed times for me hover around the 2 to 3 am range.  not so for work nights.  but tonight, i have a cold.  i have a sick day at work tomorrow.  i am up listening to dark ambient scores & doing my best to exhaust myself so i can get to sleep.  i wandered from room to room.  my wife & son were in their rooms, asleep, with that wonderful reassurance of their deep breathing.  i made another round about the house satisfied by all that was good in the universe.  i entered the kitchen.  i looked out the kitchen window.  nothing but the dark stillness of the neighbor's house. i turned toward the front of house.  my home that is as natural to my hand as my own thumbs.  i  saw a shape in the pallet i made for myself on the couch.  the very place where i had taken my rest during the convalescence of something as mundane as a common cold.  i stared hard.  for this shape was familiar.  it raised itself, briefly, in the brittle night.  then it collapsed unto its makeshift pillows & blankets.  i stirred.  my heart was beating fiercely in my chest.  for what could this apparition be.  i moved toward the shape.  it saw me.  & stiffened too.  together we did what any sentient being would do.  we looked.  it was me looking at me.  rather it was him looking at him that was me.  together with such fright we both fainted.  when i awoke my house was just the same solid extension of my body.  the shape in my pallet was me fully recombined toward a night's slumber.  my phone was open & was playing, still, a dark ambient score, but the fellow creature who was not-me was no longer in my bed.  i don't know if it was him or me that made these notes.  really i don't know if that shape was the real me, or if the real me might be the one making these notes.