visited from the past, from the beyond...and i wonder why last night, why after so many years...an argument, a battle, a tense goodbye at gillies in blacksburg and both of us trying to show our game faces, both of us seeing through the other, so smart and young and stubborn...and yet last night, a visit in my dreams and i've been wondering all day if tom was right that hot summer night as we all gathered around, mute and drunk disciples...wondering if we have a shared consciousness that keeps people alive for longer than they live...and if we resolve the past peacefully in our minds while we dream...and whether or not we are joined, briefly, on a path that could never exist in our waking life, that exists forever only as a possibility, a potential, a past imperfect made strangely, fantastically perfect...