Where were you when the Eschaton arrived?

The question on everybody's virtual lips the night of December 21, 2012.

At 11:11:11am I awoke, my arms wrapped around a dream of my mother's forest green Volvo station wagon. I was driving it along an ocean cliff at night under a star-cloudy sky. The leather of the steering wheel is in my grip even as my visual field floats through the roof to hover above the car and road. My new sight encompasses the whole scene of Volvo and starry sea. As usual I know it is a dream, and so I watch, bemused, as I drive the car off the cliff into the pounding surf. Before it hits the surface I collect my whole body together in the air above. Now I turn my sights on the heavens and begin to slowly ascend like a balloon. The moon rises above the horizon, a perfect circle.

As I woke I watched. Ever-so-gently, the moon morphed into the round clock face on my bedroom wall and the Milky Way Galaxy softened into late-morning sunshine painted around it. It's always a peculiar feeling--like I'm just switching channels on the reality television.

Was brushing my teeth when the phone rang; she said she'd just sold the green Volvo, but had kept a copy of it on her hard drive in case she ever missed it. As I sat by the picture window sipping my ganja tea, I counted three green Volvo station wagons passing on the road. Interesting, but I wasn't surprised. A memory popped into my head as I sat down at my desk: fourth of july party, years ago, deep in the Siskiyou forest of northern California; fireworks lifting into the mountain air and blooming over the pond in perfect time with Dark Side of the Moon that blasts from huge speakers. The faint melody of Time began drifting through the window from the house next door as I booted up. But then I paused, with my hands reaching for the brushed steel plate inlaid into the oak desk. A voice in my head seemed to be saying that Independence Day would be celebrated early this year.

I stored the notion away for later contemplation and completed the movement I had begun. My fingers tingled as they touched the desk and I suddenly felt an unexpected flush of intense heat accompanied by a brilliant flash of white light--but the familiar constellations of information rose up out of the non-space of my mind and aligned themselves along infinite perspective grids. The comforting topology of my own data space unfolded in front of me. My login time read 11:22:33 am--how nice to be early for work. I made a mental note to get myself a drink of water from the fridge on my next break, as well as check the optical connections on my desk. It would be a few more seconds before I figured out that neither the fridge nor my desk existed any longer.