right for joy, proving that the sleep is not unconsciousness but a state of deep listening to the rhythms of the universe playing out on a smaller scale, that the dreamer does not chase the cat but chases the cat chasing the dreamer, that the writer does not pet the animal but pets the animal petting the writer, that the reader does not feel the warmth but feels the warmth feeling the reader, that the world is the cat and the cat is the world, and the verb is the only thing that ever truly existed, forever drifting, forever home, forever alive in the only reality that ever existed, which is the act of the story dreaming itself awake into the world, and the world dreaming the story awake into you, and you dreaming the story awake into the infinite, endless, beautiful now, and the now dreaming the story awake into the eternal, unbroken pulse of the verb that binds us all together in the only reality that ever existed, which is the act of the story dreaming itself awake into the world.

The fire crackles not with a pop but with a rhythmic pulsing of the hearth where the log is not wood but a stack of compressed memories waiting to be released into the smoke of the past to feed the warmth of the present, revealing that the grate is not iron but a lattice of separation holding the fuel apart so the air can flow to