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She kissed him lightly on the forehead and smiled. As the clear plastic lid of his 'coffin' slowly sank to the closed position he read her lips say: 'Night, night'.
She'd said he wouldn't dream but she'd been wrong about that. From the moment Stock felt consciousness slipping away, his mind was filled with bright colours and echoing voices. Random images, fragments of memory distorted by sleeping reason, danced lightly before his mind's eye. He was a child again, living high up in the Enwhy Hirise with his mother.
He stood out on their balcony staring down at rolling clouds, imagining he lived above an enormous bowl of slowly moving mashed potatoes. He listened to his breathing, muffled by the respirator, playing with the hollow sounds he could make. A far off keening noise made him look up, a black speck fell toward him from the upper levels. The screaming grew louder and louder. A man. Arms spread out catching the wind rush, the falling figure shot past him on his way to destruction far below. As the man went by he looked child-Stock straight in the eye. Stock saw only sadness.
And then another, further off from the west tower, plummeting, limbs out star-like and twisting in the wind, the same long, long scream torn from his lungs. And another, from higher up. And then more and more of them until it was raining screaming men all around.
Mr. Coombs from next door came out onto his own balcony. He stretched his arms out and arched his back.
“Morning Philip.” he said, his voice muffled by his respirator. "Terrible, terrible weather, eh?" Stock just nodded.
Mr. Coombs climbed up onto the guard rail of his balcony. He turned to Stock and said, “Nothing to be done about it, you know. There are just too many of us.” and he leapt out into space, adding his own screaming voice to the hideous wailing of the human rain.
The door hissed open behind him. His mother came out and put a hand on his shoulder.
“Come inside, Philly.” she said, "They're only silly Leapers. There's nothing to be done about it."
As dreams will, this one changed it's whim and ambled off through it's own twisted perception of time. He was in school, sat in ranks with his classmates. Far off, the teacher murmured at the front of the auditorium. Stock couldn't hear and he couldn't see. The teacher was saying something very important, gesturing often to a diagram displayed on the screen, it looked a little like a spider's web. He stood up but it seemed many of the hundreds of his classmates had beaten him to it, their heads bobbed back and to, obscuring his view. He turned to his neighbor.
“What did she say?” he said. The neighbor shrugged.