Nobody likes to hear about other people's dreams—let alone read about them—but just bear with me a moment.

It wasn't remarkable for how realistic it was—you know how some people, when describing their already boring dreams, lapse into that seemingly endless feedback loop of, "I—I can't really explain it. It was just… So real… I can't explain to you in words how real it felt… It just felt… So real…" and on and on, until you want to cry from boredom. And we're all grown-ups here, so I'm not going to give you the old closing line, like a quarter with a string tied around it, "…And then I woke up." I wouldn't do that to you. And this isn't about how weird or scary it was—sure, it was both of those things, but neither of those things were what stuck with me after I'd woken up. What stuck with me was how much it surprised me.

My wife and I were over at a friend's house, though I'm not sure who exactly this friend was supposed to be; within the logic of the dream, all I knew was that the other person was a friend. His place—condo or house, I'm not sure—had the chrome fixtures and white walls that I associate with the future. One of the walls in that place was a giant, floor-to-ceiling window that ran the entire length of the house, which, from our apparently elevated position, boasted a panoramic view of a cityscape—somewhere, perhaps, like Los Angeles.

Stephanie, my wife, was back in this friend's bedroom—either hanging out back there by herself or napping—while our friend and I socialized in his living room. I don't remember what the two of us were talking about—we might have just been squawking to each other like the adults in the Charlie Brown cartoons as a kind of fill-in conversation—but our conversation was soon cut short by the tinkling sound of the glass fixtures around us. Anybody who's ever lived in southern California for more than a couple of years knows that sound. A lamp tipped over. Books shook themselves loose from their shelves, falling into piles. The tiled floor beneath us shook with a swelling violence. Before I could even think the word, earthquake, the white walls of the room burst into a fiery orange, bright enough to make you see spots when you blink, illuminated by some ultra powerful light pouring in through the window. I cupped a hand above my eyes, turning to see where the light was coming from, and stood staring at it, unblinking and mouth agape. It was as big as a flaming baseball held out about an arm's reach away, but in reality, it must have been miles. Tens of miles. It looked like the sun if the sun had shrunk to the size of a small planet, and it was nose-diving towards the ground, stretching behind it a kind of comet's tail that reached all the way up through our atmosphere.

Oh shit, I thought. Then I said it aloud.

I knew what it meant in that first quantum second. There would be no planning. No strategy. No hope. I could be on the other end of the planet and stand just as much of a chance as if I were right under it. Watching it burn its course towards Earth, I knew what it meant.

All that we had were moments.

I turned without another word to our friend and sprinted back towards the bedroom. When I got there, Steph was just opening the bedroom door and stepping out, rubbing a knuckle into one of her eyes and yawning. "Hey guys, what's going on out here?"

I grabbed her around the waist and tucked her back inside the room, then, with one hand cradling her head and my other arm looped around her back with my hand planted against her shoulder, I laid her down on the bed like I was tackling her in gentle slow-motion. We lay like that together, on our sides, her body curled into mine, eyes closed, and me, pressing her face firmly into my chest, running my fingers through her hair until they were rubbing scalp.

"Honey, I'm scared," she said.

"Don't be scared."

"But I am, honey. I'm really scared." I could feel her tears through my shirt.

"Don't be scared, honey. I'm here. Everything's all right, okay? Everything's going to be all right. Trust me. I love you."

"Okay, honey. I love you too."

The bed shook so hard at that point, it was sliding a jerky, serpentine path around the room. The ceiling peppered us in its white flakes. The roar of everything rumbling around us drowned out our voices screaming into each other's ears.

Somewhere out in the distance, there was a low, reverberating thud like the kind you sometimes hear on quiet nights in the weeks leading up to the Fourth of July. Even with my eyelids crushed tightly shut, I could make out some kind of light coming at us. It approached with a sound like ocean waves. The closer it got, the brighter the light shone through my eyelids until I could see pure white.

After that, I was the white.

I stayed in that whiteness for a long time. When I remembered that I had eyes, I opened them and I was back in my own bed. When Steph woke up, I told her about the dream and she hugged me and told me she was sorry.

"Sorry? Why?"

"Uh, because it was so sad." She gave me a look that implied an added, duh.

I told her that while it was depressing that we both died in the dream, I was actually really happy with the way that I handled the situation. I didn't complain, I didn't fall apart, I didn't go into some bewildered trance—I did exactly what I would want myself to do. I told her that I was surprised that my subconscious could make such good decisions under pressure.

All That We Had Were Moments

Marck Wilder