I was at what appeared to be a family party, only I didn’t recognize the family. As it was dusk, I wanted to go out for a walk or bike ride, but a woman who was not my mother — perhaps an aunt? — kept warning me to be careful. I had to leave.

I found the men in the shed watching television; again, they didn’t seem to be my family, and my dad wasn’t among them. The shed itself was unusual because it had windows like a car. I began to wonder how the old shed, put up almost 40 years ago, could still be around. When I went out and walked around it outside, I saw that it wasn’t the shed; it was the van, but there were overhangs over the windows. It had to be more spacious inside than out.

This made me look up at the clouds, as did some others. I saw that one area was off white or yellow, in the shape of a lacy butterfly. It looked like a coincidence, but soon the whole cloud changed into a complex pattern of lacy angels that could not be coincidence. It was apocalyptic. The conversation turned to the names of the four principal angels, and all I could think was, “Gabriel,” as I watched the lace cloud in the dusky evening sky.