I dreamt of London.

I walked down familiar streets, feeling strangely detached from it all. Okay, that's a lie. The "strangely" part, that is. I always feel detached. Anyway, as I walked along, I started to get that hairs-rising-at-the-back-of-the-neck feeling that war veterans, police, horror fans, and extremely attractive people (or so I imagine) sometimes get. The feeling that says, "Don't look now, but I think we're being watched." Sherlock would have scoffed and wasted fifteen minutes of my life explaining the primitive brain, perception, instinct, as if I hadn't read 'The Gift of Fear' twice.

I don't remember sound, which actually is strange, because if London is anything, it's damned, bloody noisy. The traffic alone. But in my dream, it was silent, or I was just so tuned into the aforementioned feeling, I didn't notice. I started looking cautiously around ... and there he was. Yes, him. Sherlock. Out of the corner of my eye, but plain as day. Of course, you can guess the rest. I turned my head, and he wasn't there, or it was just somebody who barely resembled him at all. Then it started happening in shop windows as I passed. Then in doorways. Surrounded by Sherlocks. I feel a weep coming on as I'm typing this, and I'm not even sure if it's grief or just horror at the thought.

So far, everything but the lack of sound was in no way out of the ordinary within the past couple months of my life. But then, in the window of a particular coffee shop (isn't that just so American? Coffee shop. What the fuck is happening in this country?). Anyway, again with the corner-of-the-eye thing, but when I turned, he did not vanish. He couldn't have been more than ten feet from where I was standing, and he saw me, too. We stared right into each other's eyes (how romantic, right?), and I fancied he actually looked a little surprised. Alarmed. Not like him at all. And then he turned and moved into the shop, away from the window. Of course I moved to follow, and of course as soon as my hand reached out to open the door, I woke up. Shaking, sweating, swearing.

The next day, I checked out of my nice bed and breakfast, ended my lovely Spanish holiday (which my therapist promised would do me a world of good), caught a taxi (driver ripped me off - oh, well, has to make a living, doesn't he? At least he didn't try to kill me) to the airport, and was back in London in time for supper. Mrs. Hudson seemed pleased to see me if not to feed me.

After washing up (least I could do), I went out. Well, it's obvious isn't it? I re-traced my steps from the dream. This time there was sound to spare, and strangely (this time really strangely), there were no phantom-Sherlocks to torment me. People were just people. Strangers. The coffee shop window was empty. There were no spies, criminals, or hit men lurking in doorways. The graffiti was certainly not bright yellow. Peaceful. I'd never felt more depressed in my life.

The reason I'm even bothering to write all this out is because just as I started to compose a congratulatory (thanks for nothing) speech to my therapist, I saw Sherlock. Really saw him. I mean, okay, obviously I didn't, but I swear it seemed more real than even in my dream. He was on the other side of the street, and not in a coffee shop, but peeking around the corner of a building. But just like the dream, I saw him, he saw me seeing him, and he had that look. That exact same look from the dream. "Oh, shit," I'd call it. And just like the dream, he turned and was gone.

So the reason I'm writing, as I said, is because I hoped that once I got this down, I'd clearly see that of course I am tired from traveling, stressed, and my brain naturally reproduced the dream. Especially as I had set out to do exactly that. I wanted to see him, I expected to see him, I saw him. Simple. Plain as the nose on his face. There can be no other explanation.

So why don't I really believe it?