Uh, I don't know how quite to explain this, but I will try my best.

Last night, I had a premonition of sorts.  I was settling into bed sometime after midnight.  I was up working on an assignment, ending the evening with my participation in an extremely brief and stupid online conversation with a "spiritual" person who has a penis perched on his neck, apparently.  You know, instead of a noggin?  He's smart, he said, and the rest of us are dumb if we're not born under the sign of Pisces or any other water sign.  Yep, the guy knows better than everyone else on the planet because he's studied this, that and the other thing.  Blah, blah, etc, etc.  And not only does he really believe all of this, but I think that he's actually rounding up Pisceans (and other water signs) he can get his paws on for some odd mission. 

Can you smell the fucktardness, here?  Because it reeks.  I enjoy Astrology and all, but I told the guy that whatever he was selling, I wasn't buying.  He only became mad at me after I respectfully disagreed with a narrow-minded comment he made regarding (for the astrologers out there) a Grand Cardinal Cross video on YouTube, anyhow.  I wasn't mean.  I was humorously expressing a fair perspective on the subject matter.  Joking.  But since he responded like an arrogant Pisces-asshole, I told him that he was entitled to believe whatever he wanted. 


                                  


Because, really.  In the grand scheme of things, if he wants to believe that Papa Smurf will be the next president of the United States, I won't stop him.  Would you?


                                    


Still, I'm grateful for that experience because that dude is precisely the reason why I'm weening away from some sites, these days.  I'm sorry, but some of you out there are... just... waaay fucking out there.

Anyway, I kissed my husband, wishing him sweet dreams as I always do.  Because I love him.  Then I nuzzled my head into one of our softest pillows like Milo the cat taught me.  I closed my eyes and was *this* close to dozing off into a usual deep-sleep when...


                         


POW.

I heard a gunshot. 

Not a real one.  Not one in a dream.  Not one on TV. 

It was a loud crack, a gunshot, and I'm calling it a premonition.  I wasn't awake when I heard it, but I wasn't yet asleep.  I was somewhere in-between.

Now, if you don't think I know what a gunshot sounds like, let me clear the air for you.  I grew up in the Bronx where it was common to hear gunshots.  We heard them during drug-related battles down the street.  We heard them right after the NY Yankees won a world series.  Gunshots also rang from nearby rooftops when neighbors welcomed in a new year.  Shooters didn't discriminate.



                     

One time, I was returning home with three bags of groceries from a bodega around our block, and I had to zip behind the wall of a random building because gunshots went off just steps away from my path.  I kinda wanted to arrive home alive, I guess, and certainly not resembling Swiss cheese.   I was about ten-years-old, maybe eleven at the time, and it was the closest I'd ever been to a gun-related incident.

So, yeah.  I know what gunshots sound like.  I heard one last night and don't know what to make of it.  I was a little startled by the loud sound (anyone would be) but too tired, I think, to have become frightened.  I was too tired to react in general.  I'm glad about that because it would have been stupid react to an unreal gunshot in any capacity, no?

Since waking up, I haven't been able to let the sound go, however.  It was really close to my ear.  I've had dreams about impending disasters, stuff like that, usually three days prior to an event.  Never quite understood them, nor have I taken them literally.  I've also had several premonitions in the past, though neither of them have included gunshots (or any other sounds, for that matter-- usually just visions).  I've kept most of these experiences under wraps for years. 

This particular premonition is new to me...