1:29 a.m. Ah yes. The good old days. I've been continuing to arrange my quite extensive collection of sci fi and related books and unfortunately for the nones, a few of the artifacts are crumbling. Covers are flapping in the wind, pages are shattering at the edges. It only makes them more precious to me.

Also precious is the vinegary sharp tang of loss I feel when I realize that I don't, at this exact moment, have the fear anymore.

Oh, I used to have it. I couldn't read Whitley Strieber when I was alone. He scared the living bejesus out of me. Not that I *believed* or anything -- I just bought into it, hook and all. There must be some kind of ancient, racial memories that are triggered ... the fear that comes when you contemplate that black space beyond the campfire. The bloody teeth.

But lately, the old trend machine has moved on from paranoia to profit-taking and it's really not the same. Sure, it's scary to think that our little squalid portion of the city might one day be steam-cleaned and sandblasted by yuppie restorationists with a stainless-steel fetish, but it's not the same kind of rawboned terror that I used to feel when thinking about alien invasions.

Why haven't they come to earth? Aren't we good enough? Tender enough?

But again, I kid. I jest. I'd be the first one under the bed if I thought they really were coming in the night. In fact, I've had two jumpy experiences this last week that show me just how close to the surface those old icy fingertips of fear really are.

You see, I work late into the night most nights. There's a circle of light at my desk and there's always the cold white glow of the monitor, but after that ... it's dark. The windows are covered with black paper, and the room beyond this room has disappeared. And there's a certain kind of dependable silence.

I get absorbed in whatever hideously huge and demanding job I'm currently slacking around the edges of. Maybe a tinge of guilt will creep in, unavoidably, if I'm out gathering cute animations when I should be editing someone's cumbersome footnotes. So when something crashes at the far end of my office -- scrapes/crashes out where the water heater is, beyond the door frame ...

... well I grow a whole new layer of goosebumps and literally jump back against the wall. And my first thought as I look up past the lamplight and squinty-quick-breath peer into the gloom is ... what if it's one of those little 4-foot-blue-gray things? The ones with the big but beady eyes?

(Not to be confused with the glow-in-the-dark gummi alien in my paperclip basket or the inflatable squeaky one hanging on the French doors ... )

And then, the other night the stupid smoke detector in my office went gonzo. We'd just replaced the battery earlier in the day and once night fell, it began to hum and squeal in a low-pitched keen and I swear to God that I thought at first that it might have been a space craft hovering outside the black-construction-papered windows.

Not that I believe in aliens or UFOs or space coyotes, but ... it was the first thing that came to my mind. Bastards. Scaring the wits out of me, and I need my wits for my daily bread. Bastards. Gathering the wrath of the collective unconsciousness of all our citizenry every time we're mad at our government or fearful that we'll lose our jobs.

Where have all the bastards gone?

I really can't believe that -- nobody -- is out to get us. That nobody is plotting behind the potted plants ... that nobody is pulling off their rubbery visages and licking their eyebrows with their lizard tongues when they think no one is looking and ...

... could they all be in chat rooms? Are they the ones speaking in lol code? Doodz?