You know how you have those occasional moments where you find yourself thinking (usually a few minutes afterwards): “Am I ascending to a higher level of consciousness? Or am I just going nuts?” Well…

The town is re-paving our street. The way it’s done is, two specialist vehicles crawl slowly along the street, one behind the other. The first is a truck whose main part is a huge long tank, of gas I suppose, set above a big metal array half a street wide and twice as long, whose purpose is to direct great heat, in the form of flames, downwards onto the road surface. The vehicle behind is the same, with the rear addition of a spreader dropping a level layer of new asphalt on the super-heated road. (Way behind both these vehicles is a big roller vehicle to flatten out the result–but that plays no part in my story.)

Well, heading back to the house with Boris at the end of his daily walk, I turned into our street, and there was this resurfacing operation a hundred yards away, creeping slowly towards me. The oncoming lead truck had flashing yellow lights fixed all around it. Spasms of flame could be seen coming out from beneath the flat apparatus. The whole thing was emitting great gushes of smoke; and of course the noise was tremendous–grinding, roaring, hissing noise.

Suddenly I wasn’t seeing all this as what I knew perfectly well it was. I was seeing it as something else–as a creature, a living thing with a will, bearing down on me, roaring and smoking. I felt what a Plains Indian must have felt on first seeing a locomotive. It wasn’t just a truck, it was a fire-breathing dragon. My instinct was to turn and run for my life.

This peculiar perception was only a flash. I suppose it lasted two or three seconds. It was extraordinarily powerful, though. I haven’t felt quite right since. Looking around my study now, four hours later, I keep expecting the computer printer to sprout pseudopods and grab me by the throat, like the microscope in that Philip K. Dick story. Do I need a drink? A rest? A doctor? Or just a new pair of glasses?