I wander deeper into the Sahara Desert, away from the Tuaregs’ campfire, to find my sleeping place. Far from the others, I am drawn toward a rocky outcropping, but I stop about halfway when I notice Monica ahead of me, going to that same place. I make my bed right there in the sand, where I stop. Snug in my down sleeping bag, I rest in the dark starlight, looking up at the Milky Way, asking for the courage and readiness to “face the West,” the direction of mystery, darkness, and death, at this point in my vision quest journey. As soon as my eyes drift closed, into the hypnagogic state just before sleep takes over, I hear a door slam open, like a gunshot. I startle. I seem to feel or see, emerging out of the shadows, an otherworldly face framed by the door’s outline, in the threshold. The black eyes carry an expression that seems expressionless but isn’t. The presence of the being both thrills and frightens me. I greet “him,” and then he vanishes and sleep and dreams come. The next morning, goosebumps pile on top of goosebumps as Monica and I communicate in my mediocre French, and I discover that she, too, saw the dark figure in the doorway just before sleeping, but she slammed the door shut.
