2002-05-24 / 10:47 a.m.

(flying low to the ground)

i am in a hotel standing on the balcony and watching another hotel across the street burn down. The entire building has been reduced to its frame and flames are everywhere. As fire shoots into the sky I try not to think about the people who may not have escaped.

Then, I hear a plane and look up. At first I think it is a rescue plane or that it has come to spray water on the building. Then I realize it is a jet fighter.

And suddenly the sky is filled with them - they are flying to the ground and I am shaking in the wake of their vibrations.

I look up again and see the underside of a cloud - a dark, stormy rain cloud - on it is written the words "it's all over".

And I realize this is the apocalypse. This is it...it's all over.

I go back inside - the hotel seems empty.

I start walking down the hallways searching for someone I know -anyone.

I walk into one room and there is an elderly lady lying on a bed, crying and trembling with fear.

I walk out.

After checking a few more rooms I go back to the lobby - there is a man behind a desk.

"Is this the end?" I ask him.

"Yes," he says.

"Where is everybody?" I ask him.

"In there," he says, pointing across the room towards a door. "But children go in that room".

He points to another door.

I don't have any children so I make my way to the first room.

It's dark and I have to step down into a sunken area that is lined with chairs.

I don't see anyone I know.

I sit next to a girl with strawberry blonde hair.

Suddenly I want to talk to my mother.

"Oh my god," I say. "I wish that I could call her."

"There's a high percentage she won't answer," the strawberry blonde tells me.

"What did you feel like when you realized this was the end - what were your thoughts?" I ask her.

She looks at me blankly.

"I don't know" she says with a shrug.

At that moment I remember the elderly lady on the bed - I think of her trembling and crying and alone. I feel horrible that I left her there.

I have to go get her, I think.

Do I have enough time?

last night ... tonight