Dream

'I woke up and knew that [she was dead]. I also knew that my desire had fixed on her without her being its object.' The Reader, Bernhard Schlinke


You are the one who stays in my head. After you mounted behind him and he drove you round the corner, I did not see you. You seemed to laugh, or cough.

At the back of my throat something I could not quite cough up.

My wrists deep in water fishing for my shoes. My father's eyes meet me as I sing 'You've really got me' over the radio's derivative tune.

Waves crenellated like in Chinese watercolour, the tsunami comes. I tell my family to stay at the top of the house because there is a danger, as if I am warning about the risks of staying out late. Jon, though, is on the floor below when it hits. A surge, afterwards - like a tug on my feet - tells me it has passed.

You are gone, Gen.