Remember when you were being chased at recess by Ricky Culligan the BULLY. and you ran in front of the swingset and Martha Peabody with perfect deliberation nailed you on her upward arc with her smug straight legs and SADDLE SHOES. and your glasses landed seven feet away under the seesaw and everything went yellow and you saw the gravel coming up toward you in slow motion before the BLACKOUT. and in the nurse's office when all the concerned people left for a minute you looked up

and you saw PERFECTLY CLEARLY peering around the doorframe a duplicate of your mother which you knew was not your mother, dressed all in BLACK with a small scar above one eye. SMILING. and when you screamed and screamed and everyone came running and you told them about the duplicate of your mother dressed in black smiling they said you'd had a bad DREAM but you knew you'd been absolutely AWAKE and you had really seen it even though you decided never to TALK about it again. It's like THAT. but also DIFFERENT.