Waking Up

My class read an excerpt from the opening of Proust's Remembrance of Things Past for today's discussion. As a prelude to the discussion, we're writing about waking up. Here's my contribution:

I am startled out of my dream. I still see the waves closing over a spit of sand, the tide coming in. I was on an island, desperately trying to preserve some books (from what? I'm not sure) by slinging reusable grocery bags over my shoulders. I was holding the hand of someone tall, lanky, and blond. The waves rolled over us; we were underwater. I surfaced, with bags but no books. Climbed to the town on higher ground, still seeking the weighty load that had vanished under the sea. Darkness. Then I notice the edges of the curtains and the glow of the light outside. I swim out from the sea into my room. I am warm, sweating. My husband slumbers and snores next to me. I hear the BART train whoosh by with its ghostlike howl. What woke me up? The children are silent. It is four fifty-five, the glow of my clock tells me. For a week we've been waking up at four fifty-five. But no one is crying this time. I want to pull the covers over my head, go back to sleep, not start the day just yet. I roll over, hoping to find the waves, the shore, the books again.