joanne even came to her in her dreams , every night cutting her with scalpel-like fingers , burning her to a crisp with a lab laser or pushing her from the top of a building or the coastal cliffs into a swirling , fiery morass that she first took to be a pit of hell , but realized , just before bolting upright in bed , that it was joannes mouth , agape with laughter , devouring space and time like a galactic black hole .