As a child, I had one particular dream more times than I could count. It started long before I can remember. I’d always had this dream. It was black — dark and infinite — I couldn’t tell if I was still or moving or falling. There were images of white: skulls, ghosts, spirits, and I’m not sure what else. The flew past me, gazing at me, mouths agape. Horrible visions. I could hear my heart beating. Louder and louder.

But it wasn’t the darkness or the images or the heart beat that I focussed on. No, there was a particular feeling. Not an emotional feeling, but a real, physical feeling. It was all I could think of.

At first, I had no idea what it was. Then, over the years, I pieced it together. It was something between my fingers. Grasped firmly and massaged between the index, middle finger and thumb of my right hand. Always the same fingers, grasping and feeling at something. That something was the ring finger of my left hand. Right where a wedding ring would be. Grasping through the skin and muscle to the very bone.

My first girlfriend thought it might have been a left-over from a previous life. A memory of something lost. A longing for the wedding ring I no longer bore.

Tonight I was sitting here, and I found myself with a spooky, familiar feeling. My index, middle finger and thumb were grasping at my left ring finger. Where my wedding ring has been, but sits no longer. Not for days now.

I think I finally understand that dream. Those feelings.

I have lost something, and I feel those images, those daemons, flying past me again in the darkness. I understand them, and that they have always been a part of me, waiting to return. Now that they’re here, they are again eclipsed by a feeling. A certainty of loss and absence.

My childhood dream has become real, and I find myself wishing that I could just wake up.