The Fog of Being Half-Awake

You know the feeling, that push-pull of consciousness as you slide between dreams and daylight

You know the feeling. That push-pull of consciousness, your face pressed to the pillow as you slide between dreams and daylight. That liminal space we inhabit when we’re half-awake is a half-world; we’re just as alive there, just as vital, but reality is flexible, more formless. The high-density fuzz of this in-between space can obscure something as significant as a loved one leaving us; it can also thin the walls of reality, allowing us to be connected, ghost-like, with places and people far away.

When I read these stories from people all over the world, all existing in their own half-awake spaces, it reminds me how ordered we are when we’re fully awake, how we experience time and space in straight lines, and what a contrast that is to the hazy, blooming edges of our half-awake minds, opening us up to something new. — From the Editor, Evyn Williams

I.

There are spider-silk threads of dreams sticking to the corners of my mind. I keep my eyes closed, pushing out the creaking floorboards as the cats…