Year of the Boar, Eleventh Month, Day 6.

 Yet again, sleep granted me no rest and I awoke before the sun, gasping for breath and covered in sweat. A slow chill crept over me as the cool air met my damp skin and I remained in my bed shivering for a while before I surrendered to the day and came to sit on my veranda for a while.

The strangest of dreams disturbed me… a man whose face I did not recognise in the dream and do not know now I am awake to think on it… a man with the gentlest of hands holding my face, resting his fingertips against my cheek in a gesture of … I know not what… not malevolence and yet… preventing me from moving just the same… the fingertips of his other hand floating down my neck, barely in contact with my skin and as he reached the neckline of my silks, his thumb brushed my lower lip. There was something in his eyes… something… he knew he could have what he wanted for there was nothing to stop him; I was powerless beneath his hands and yet he persisted with only the softest touch…

I felt disquieted, ill at ease. I did not know how to respond… it was not unpleasant but, in the dream, I wanted it to stop. And I … did nothing to prevent it but I did not want it and I did not consent. I woke just as he pressed himself closer, about to push open my silks.

My heart beats irregularly even now as I sit here in the pale light of dawn and I do not understand why I should feel so unsettled by this, of all dreams… I do not know whether it is the memory of the dream or the cool breeze which has raised goosebumps on my forearms and the hair on the back of my neck but the sense of foreboding grows and I wish that it would recede to a dull roar just for today… just a few hours when I do not feel afraid of what is coming around the corner, when I need not worry about demons or shadows or … him… I should like a pipe… I should like to feel my consciousness float away as it used to do… more than anything, I should like a day which is not a battle… A day when I could think clearly about what to do... how to get myself out of this mess which I have created... a day to free myself...