It starts the same way each time. A meeting at work where too many people crowd a small room, someone's cologne too strong, voices overlapping. My lungs begin to shrink. I focus on the clock, count minutes until I can escape. My BREATH::SHALLOW has become normal, but sleep won't come easily.

When dreams finally arrive, they recycle moments I've lived through - standing in that elevator that stopped between floors for nine minutes, sitting in traffic on the bridge with exhaust fumes filling the car, swimming too far from shore and feeling my muscles tire. In each dream, the air gradually disappears until I'm struggling against nothing. I wake gasping, sheets damp, the MEMORY::TRIGGER connecting dream to reality. Morning brings temporary relief, but the cycle waits to begin again with the next crowded room, the next reminder of what it means to fight for air.