About two weeks ago, I was asleep in my bed dreaming about something when all of a sudden, my dream transported me to a shopping center where I found myself pushing a shopping cart even though it was on the path of collusion with my aunt and grandpa. What were they doing in my dream, I do not know. Thankfully, the three of us stopped in time before we collided into one another.

I peeked down the aisle. It was stacked high with can goods and the warehouse had incredible high ceiling. It reminded me of a community food pantry I visited last March. We stared at each other. I frowned, still wondering what they were doing here and why we were the only people here when a shrieking alarm disrupted my thoughts.

Red lights flashed above us. “What is that?” I remember asking as I looked up at the lights. They were gone, nowhere to be seen and that was when I woke up nearly falling out of bed.

The shrieking alarm turned out to be real. It came from outside on the street, probably something tripped the alarm of a scooter. I checked the time, 3:30 am. The alarm was so loud I felt like I was right next to it. Not only the noise drove me insane but it was the fact that my sleep had been disrupted every night that week. It was always something – a very loud kitty crying or the blaring alarm of a car or scooter. The noise made me want to chuck something through the bars of my window. It made me want to scream.

After pacing about the room several rounds with deep-breaths to calm my anxiety, I finally climbed back into bed, eyes wide opened staring at the ceiling. After a few moments, I decided to grab my tablet on the nightstand and opened the WordPress app to check my notifications as well as read some posts until I finally fell asleep an hour later with the app still opened next to me.