An ungendered parental figure turns beast, vampire like, and begins to ravage those around me. I scramble around the cramped space as I see the creature approaching, open the car door and run out. Looking back for a brief moment, I see the figure with a glib smile and I realize that fleeing will only delay the inevitable. The realization is joined with a passing panic quickly transformed into acceptance. I seat myself on the ground, seiza (Japanese formal kneeling), and take a meditation posture.

A calm female face in white lab coat tells me that she will inject me with an episode-causing agent––they need my body to produce an antibody, I think. Another figure behind me holds my body as the shocks course through my cells; I’m strangely calm considering this is a heart attack. The eyes cannot roll back, they are fixated forward forced to imbibe the idiocy of spasms, the helpless horizontal orientation in the figure’s hands.

The photos that were once reminders of a beautiful lost turn into visionary documents of an ethereal future, born in its practice.