Loon Koo slept in the rear of the bungalow and had gone to bed when I went in the second time. My room was in the front, with a window opening to the porch. I found the room cooler with the windows closed, as it barred the hot breeze.
For fifteen minutes I deliberated with myself about the needle. I ended by using it. I shot it home pitilessly and my pierced muscle quivered under the thrust. There were many little marks on my arms. I felt ashamed. But the sleep, the restful oblivion—could anything be sweeter? Before the drug had begun its work I fastened the room up tighter and lay down. It was close, of course, but why should I mind that? I should sleep; my breath came deep and long. . . .
Falling, falling through space, weightless and devoid of reason. A million miles. That's not far to fall . . . ten times a million miles. I fell, I fell, the stars and planets but sparks of light and I myself, only a small, golden pin-head. . . .
What is myself? The river was deep . . . the grass was green . . . I am taller than he is . . . his mouth is funny . . . his eyes are green . . . they are diamonds. . . What makes him move his head so? He wheezes . . . he sighs . . . that's Old Mother Hubbard . . . that spider works . . . sand . . . salt . . . water . . . blue. . . rainbow colors . . . what? Senseless and falling through space. What is space? It all happened in the fraction of a second—crazy nothings, distractions of a tortured brain. Was I dreaming? Am I dreaming? I am dreaming. . . .
Something seems awfully heavy, hot, oppressive, magnetic. It's not heavy near my face! it has no weight on my face, but down on my legs the weight is terrible. What makes it so heavy? The coverings are not pulled over me.
Spending months in a moment, decades in a second, I broke the spell and became conscious. This state constituted only a few perceptions. My eyes were closed. I was myself, resting where I always rested—in space; for I am space, the beginning and ending of space. I was somewhere. There was the evil presence, the hot presence. There hovered over me the hint of danger, not now but impending. If I knew what that danger was, I might resist.
The weight of the hint bore down upon my upper body, a spiritual weight with a crushing force. The heavy, material weight on my abdomen and legs was nothing compared to it. The greater the power of the evil, the heavier was its atmosphere. I had thought that this idea of a crushing weight had been a part of the dream, but consciousness proved it to be real.
I began to be more aware of my body. My hands were folded across my chest and suffered from the pressure. My eyes would not open. There seemed to be a power above me that kept them closed, and I did not want to open them. I felt that when they did open, I should lose the poise of my high-strung nerves. The sweat steeped from my skin. My forehead felt as if the most powerful magnet in existence were trying to draw out my brains. If I opened my eyes, the magnet would get in its work. Then it occurred to me that perhaps I had seemingly died, been buried alive, come to life again, and that the heaviness torturing me was the foul air of a coffin. I had no record of time.
Suddenly I felt the veil of weight beginning to lift. My eyelids twitched—they would open. Unable to resist, I opened my eyes wide.
Apparently I was in my room. The moonlight came in wan swords through the slits in the blinds. There was barely enough light to make objects perceptible. I heard a faint
