He was looking up, toward a ceiling with a long, jagged crack, whose edges were stained brown. Evidence of a leak, hopefully old. And not at all remarkable.

Except that the bedroom in his apartment had a popcorn ceiling. He had joked about it with his then ex-wife, on the day she had helped him — not without relief — move in. “It’s like time travel to the 70s!”, they had laughed. A popcorn ceiling with no flaws (other than its inherent ones), cracks or otherwise.

This ceiling was smooth. Smooth, and with a crack that, as he slowly awoke, was looking more and more familiar.

What the hell?

He sat up. This is another one of those goddamn dreams. His mouth was dry, and he reached over for his tumbler of water. And for a moment, he couldn’t breathe.

The tumbler wasn’t there. The nightstand — his nightstand, bought a week before from Crate and Barrel — wasn’t there. Nor was his phone, or watch.

The nightstand was old, its finish worn mostly off. The top was a circle round, cracked marble. He recognized it. He had used to play around it, as a child; he would pretend that inside it was a fortress, where his Star Wars figures hid. He remembered that he always had to hook his finger around the hole where the lock had been to open the door.

He looked down. There was no lock on the door, only a circular hole.

His heart was pounding, alarmingly. This is a dream. How do I make sure that this is a dream?