Canada day 1

My sleep had been uneasy to begin with. The couch wasn’t terribly uncomfortable, but it was unfamiliar, and the orange streetlight shining on my face was irritating. It also took a long time to fall asleep, because I knew I only had a few hours left before I had to be up and on the road. If I make up my mind, though, I can sleep through anything. I turned my eyes toward the wall and breathed my way into dreaming.

It came out of nowhere and tore into my dreams—a menacing crackle of sound followed by an explosion that continued to build on itself for a few seconds before dying away altogether, taking the flares of brilliant blue light with it.

When the aquamarine flashes faded, the room faded into pitch-black. I was up on my knees on the couch, mind still trying to make sense of the world, fingers splayed and hands in front of me. And—I found out later—Tara, in the next room, was also up and off her bed, back to the wall, before she truly knew what was going on. (At this point I find it something of amazing that our minds are so incredibly tuned that we were up and ready for action before we were really awake).

I didn’t figure out what had happened until, one by one, the lights outside began to flicker back on. All right, I thought to myself; power outage. No fire. I can sleep now. I shuddered once and laid back down, too tired to worry.

It happened again.

This time, it waited until we were loading up the cars, a few minutes after 4 am because Cassie’s alarm clock had also been affected by the outage. Tara was outside by the cars, and all of a sudden the lights started to flicker. I was so tired that I had almost forgotten about the night before, but I felt this strange shudder in the air and I remembered.

How can I describe the sound to you? I don't know how without sounding melodramatic. It was electric; somehow it brought to mind rushing rivers of power and death, and the menacing hum ran around under my skin. It was an instant feeling of danger in the air itself, and Cass and I darted to the door and threw it open.

Across the way, behind one of the southern village apartments, there was an absolute torrent of sparks, the most brilliant aquamarine color I have ever seen. They surged and roared in concert with the explosions. By their light we saw Tara coming quickly across the lawn toward the stairs, looking over her shoulder at the display.

It died as quickly as it had come, taking with it the lights as far as I could see, and leaving behind the angry shriek of a car alarm in the darkness and rain.

There's a way to tell this story better, if not bestest. But I'm just sticking in this journal entry because it was, by far, one of the stranger mornings I've had; not counting, of course, the Morning of the Angry Bear, and Dawn of the Infernal Din.

Oh, and I found a complete collection of every Sherlock Holmes story ever written. And I found it at McKay's. For $4. And I was SO FLIPPING EXCITED.