I dreamed that I had coffee and dessert with Lewis Thomas, who said the most delightful things, such as: "I have grown fond of semicolons in recent years. ... It is almost always a greater pleasure to come across a semicolon than a period.  The period tells you that that is that; if you didn't get all the meaning you wanted or expected, anyway you got all the writer intended to parcel out and now you have to move along.  But with a semicolon there you get a pleasant little feeling of expectancy; there is more to come; read on; it will get clearer."

Then I dreamed of sitting in a court of law, where "I witnessed a jury trial over the placement of a semicolon," just as in THIS TIME I DANCE! by Tama J. Kieves.

I dreamed of a planet with two moons.  The lower moon slowly waned away.  Then I dreamed I had corrective surgery to remove my comma half.  I was a period!  I indicated the full pause with which the utterance of a sentence closes.  Mine was a pregnant silence.

I woke up feeling uneasy, however, sensing that the period is mightier than the semicolon.

When I fell back asleep, I had a nightmare.  I was being chased by a character called "the Flotz," who gobbles up punctuation.  In fact, it was eerily like in the poem "The Flotz" by Jack Prelutsky: "I chomp on commas half the day, / quotation marks are rarer prey, / a semicolon's quite a treat, / while polka dots are joys to eat."

I dreamed that a dingo took my baby.

Later that night, I dreamed of falling in love with a man convicted of "the crime of silence" and who dedicated himself to semicolons.  I realized upon waking that my dream was inspired by the novel A HISTORY OF LOVE by Nicole Krauss: "Only after they charged him with the crime of silence did Babel discover how many kinds of silences existed.  When he heard music he no longer listened to the notes, but the silences in between.  When he read a book he gave himself over entirely to commas and semicolons, to the space after the period and before the capital letter of the next sentence."

I dreamed about Jesus and the Twelve Apostrophes.

Later that night, I dreamed yet again that I was a colon.  I was part of a ratio, and stood for the word "to," as in 3:1 (three to one).

Then I dreamed I heard confession from a woman who said: "I suffer over every period and comma; I am certain the entire meaning of the whole book might be changed by an aptly placed semicolon," just as in MORE NOW, AGAIN by Elizabeth Wurtzel.

I dreamed that, like a colon, I stood between parts of a numerical expression of time (in hours, minutes, and seconds).  On digital clocks, I got to blink.

Later that night, I dreamed about that gorgeous passage in the novel MIDDLESEX by Jeffrey Eugenides, about the teacher who "spoke in complete paragraphs.  If you listened closely it was possible to hear the dashes and commas in his speech, even the colons and semicolons."

I dreamed about a face.  There was "a tiny scar above [the] right eyebrow shaped just like a semicolon," exactly as in TAKE A CHANCE ON ME by Susan Donovan.

Then I dreamed that I fell in love with a woman who "spoke with the kind of fluency where you could SEE the semicolons in her speech," just as in BLACK FRIDAY by James Patterson.

I dreamed I had yet another name: HEMIcolon.  Hemi means "relating to or affecting a half."  I affected half the Library of Congress.

But my dream-visit to Washington turned into a nightmare.  I dreamed that Theodore Roosevelt "recruited two of the finest legal consultants in New York State to scrutinize every semicolon that came out of either House," just as documented in THE RISE OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT by Edmund Morris.

I woke up in a panic, having dreamed about the rise of the short sentence phasing out semicolons.

Then I dreamed about a refrigerator.  On it was "an article called 'The Endangered Semicolon' (held there by a magnet shaped like the also-endangered red wolf)," just as in Julia Glass's THREE JUNES.

Earlier that night, I dreamt of Manderley.

I dreamed I had corrective surgery to turn my comma half into a period.  Now I was a colon.  I stood proudly before explanations, examples, definitions, restatements, recapitulations, quotations, appositives, and lists.

Then I dreamed about a bunch of "perplexing semicolons," as in THE LINE OF BEAUTY by Alan Hollinghurst.

I dreamed that the other punctuation marks teased me about my name.  They said semi means "incomplete" or "half of."

Then I dreamed I had a new name: DEMIcolon.  Demi means "of less than full size," which sounds better than "half of."

Later that night, I dreamed about "folks in academia who're wrestling with the really big questions--like whether Joyce ever used a semicolon after 1919," as in Robert Littell's THE COMPANY.

I dreamed that Napoleon waved at me.

Then I dreamed that John Irving called me a "good old semicolon," as he did in THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP.

I dreamed I was a comma again, this time setting off a phrase as an entity, at the same time emphasizing the coherence of the preceding and following terms.  Then I was in heaven, and had become a mark to indicate a pause to take a breath.  I reminded readers everywhere to BREATHE!  I felt so important (though not conceited).

While in heaven, I saw the face the Creator.

Then I dreamed about "magnificent sentences" penned by "an aristocrat of letters" whose "baroque semicolons and rolling phrases rumble like drums," exactly as described in TERROR AND LIBERALISM by Paul Berman.

I dreamed I was a comma (after having corrective surgery to remove my period half).  At last I indicated a slight pause separating two related but distinct terms!

Then I dreamed of a small stall advertising "The Wonders of Punctuation and Spelling," with a sign that said "The Mystery of the Semicolon Revealed!!!" and "See the Ampersand! (Small Extra Charge)," just as in THE WEE FREE MEN by Terry Pratchett.

I dreamed I was a "semicolon butterfly" (polygonia interrogationis).  My wings were mottled with various shades of red and brown, and their tips were violet.  I floated off the page and lighted on an inkwell.  I uncurled my tongue and dipped it into the blue-black nectar.

Later that night, I dreamed I was listening to a financial report on the radio: "Prices of semicolons, plot devices, prologues and inciting incidents continued to fall yesterday, lopping twenty-eight points off the TomJones Index."  It was uncannily like something out of THE WELL OF LOST PLOTS by Jasper Fforde.

I dreamed I was late for class and couldn't find the room.

Later that night, I dreamed of having tea with Lewis Thomas again.  He said the most lovely things: "Sometimes you get a glimpse of a semicolon coming, a few lines farther on, and it is like climbing a steep path through woods and seeing a wooden bench just at a bend in the road ahead, a place where you can expect to sit for a moment, catching your breath."

I dreamed I couldn't be sure the independent clauses were not joined by a connective.

Later that night, I dreamed I visited Arabia, where my people walk upside down.  

Then I dreamed that I was a Greek question mark, though of course I looked the same as I always do.

That was followed by a nightmare about a young bully named Nicholas Semicolon, strikingly similar to the shameful character with the same name in HELLO, MRS. PIGGLE-WIGGLE by Betty MacDonald.

I dreamed that I hated the fact I was two punctuation marks in one: a period and a comma.  I envied other punctuation, especially the dash. 

Then I dreamed about how Winston Churchill "believed that in remarks directed to the ear, a semicolon was verboten—whereas a dash fit the rhythm of a speech or talk, making it more conversational," just as in SPEAK LIKE CHURCHILL by James C. Humes.

I dreamed I discovered a new room in my house.  In it was stored all sorts of important things I'd forgotten about.

Later that night, I had a nightmare about Kurt Vonnegut reading aloud from his book A MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY: "Do not use semicolons.  They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing.  All they do is show you've been to college."

I dreamed I was blind and couldn't see if there was a conjunctive adverb.

Then I had a nightmare about tatty motel room in the middle of a brutal desert, where "the beds are cheap and occasionally feature little black periods and semicolons that reveal themselves to be hungry bedbugs," just as in The Devil's Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea.  I woke up scratching.  I remember now that the room didn't have cable, either.