February 14, 2083

I was awoken by the muffled sound of a teleporter backfiring in the adjacent unit this morning, I think it’s been like this for about a month now. I’m not quite sure though, being hoisted from my dreams several times each week has begun to make waking life feel unreal. Perhaps this is how Meshia feels all the time, her whiskers and swiveling ears overtuned so that no sensation is too small and rest is always fleeting.

Apparently there was an issue with the old tele next door, something about an older model improperly preserving the mind’s paths. The woman who lived there always had a touch of paranoia about her, but when she started knocking at my door past 2300 to tell me my tape player was too loud, I could see the distance in her eyes and knew that she had strayed too far from baseline. I was glad that she sold her unit, but I hope she feels better wherever she went. I also hope she never finds out that now it is I who cannot sleep.

My hope is that I can return to my dreams in the near future. Last night I was on the beach with my grandfather in his hometown, he was showing me the rain clouds off the coast. He said that when he was a child, he thought the streams of water coming from the clouds were tendrils, and that he often wished they would come pick him up so that he could live above the ocean. Instead it seemed like they plucked everyone beautiful to him from the sand, he said.

- Hari