Later that night, I dreamed. I’d forgotten how I’d closed my eyes, or the how long the pistol had stayed glued to my hand. The dream came and there was no violence in it. I could see fingers driving themselves into the glassy malleability of water; a faucet was rushing all over porcelain fingers. The tips were perfectly shaped to form a gentle tip, a woman must own them. The fingers rubbed against each other, not in a sexual way, but confidently; as if his car had always stayed in her driveway. The faucet stopped and those fingers hung loosely along curves. Now those curves were bark on an oak tree, firm and distinct, better than the robes entombed in her closet. Fingers dangling like knives, not because of fear or malice, but because they needed something…a purpose as sharp as their edges. There was a sun in my dreams, it’s belly was full and he kept staring over the shoulder (bark?) of the woman. He was looking with a face rounded by generations of messy bourbon caresses; this was not what it wanted. She stood there, rooted and calm, allowing time to briefly gather its things. Then nothing…or should I say no “concepts.” Randomness; the gentle wafting of a child’s hair, a wrench lying still on a garage floor, a salamander peering nervously from the opening of a hubcap, yawning scissor blades.
The dream sloshed around like this for what felt like hours. A collage of stillness; single moments separated from a progression of moments in a series, seemingly without focus. When I woke up, my skin was damp and my mouth tasted like stale popcorn. Yes, I still remembered such a taste. It was dark in the house…and I was still there. Whether or not days or minutes had passed, I was unaware. Then I saw them; collapsed on or near the table where I’d left them. The humans, possibly the last ones.
Their bodies stayed different then the dead, after they had finally fallen. The angles of the arms and legs, locking with a memory of gracefulness the dead simple had forgotten…or had ignored. I did not find this comforting, just different. This house would be my last, I promised out loud; in the spoken tongue of my fathers. The last time I believed in anything again.
