Edited to correct spelling errors (the LJ app stinks).
It was an art colony or shared workspace kind of place, a maze of old warehouses and shipping containers set up and partitioned for studios and workshops. People largely wandered through at will; there were doors, but most were open, and the expeditious route from one workspace to another might be partly on outdoor grassy paths (sheltered here and there by overhanging galvanized-metal roofs) and partly twisting through wood-floored shops and ateliers.
A jogger went by, in capris and neon tank, iPod buds firmly in her ears, dark ponytail bobbing. A last bit of rain or condensate dripped from eaves, but the sky (morning, I think) gave the impression of clearing clouds.
I'd been to visit someone at one end of the complex, and took a leisurely path back to my destination: a wood-floored and -walled space set up as a shop, with shelves of pottery and heavy art-glass vessels. There was a counter, wood also, and a couple of rickety stools drawn up to it. I might have been visiting the glass artist, because as I sat on one of the stools there was a heavy glass bowl on the counter; a ridged oval the size of a large melon, like a serving bowl, milky white with swirls and spots of many colors.
At a similar counter a few paces away, a young (early to mid-20's perhaps?) man half stood, half lounged facing me. I knew him but not well, but he was not out of place - he belonged there in some capacity, whetber woking there or a customer or at minimun an acquantaince. He was tall and lanky but not disproportionate, simply not yet come into full muscularity. His dark wavy hair was parted offcenter and hung down into his face a little on one side; his eyebrows were strong and dark over brown eyes behind wire-frame glasses. He wore jeans and a light-colored checkered shirt.
We were chatting lightly, idly, of what I don't recall but not of anything of import or emotion. He fidgeted a bit as we spoke, then took a step toward the shelves on the wall behind me.
Suddenly I was pinioned from behind. My feet were tangled in the rungs of the stool; my upper arms were pinned against my body. I could reach the glass bowl on the counter, but didn't have enough freedom of movement to make any effective contact with it. I tried to throw myself backward, butt back with my head, but it was no use. I tried to scream, to shout for help, but no sound came from my throat. Then a great bar of pressure - his other arm, most likely - fell across my throat, and all went black.
Next I knew, my field of vision was filled with a smartphone screen, and page after page of news text was scrolling by too fast to read. It slowed after 5 or 6 pages, and came to a stop at a photo: hasty, angled, pointing down at a body on the ground half covered with a sheet. My body, mouth in rictus, hair awry, and great livid marks across my collapsed throat.
At which point I awoke, aware that I had been dreaming, but still unable to speak for some moments.
anxious
awake
cheerful
bouncy
melancholy
