I am asleep again. No, in sleep. I am not simply resting; in fact I'm not resting at all. My eyes close like the tin shutter of a convenience store, and I am floating.
And I am in sleep.
It's a nice place, once you get through. There are people dancing. All white, like milk. But it isn't their race, they just are white. It's like watching lambs waltz. This must be Dream.
So I try, dancing with a ghost. It's quite nice actually. It's like being held by the warm breath that leaves you before your hair brushes against the pillowcase. I welcome the faltering air that now wraps itself around my torso. Is this a hug? Am I being hugged by a ghost? It doesn't answer my unspoken thoughts, so I gently pull back and walk away.
There's something tugging at the flesh below my ribs. It is a fishhook; how many h s? Two? Well it doesn't matter, I'm speaking to you anyway. I think I can enunciate well in Sleep.
There is a cloud a little farther ahead. The colour's different though. This isn't white; blue? orange? green? Green; spleen, Dean, mean machine, keen, teen, seen.
It is the colour of words.
I don't think I can feel here. Or do I feel too much? A numbness of feeling.
I walk ahead again. Forwards? Backwards? I don't know. There is a car; it's blue, and seemingly quite old. Well-kept, though. It's back is faced towards me. The number plate blank, white.
I open the door to the driver's seat, then change my mind and slide into the shotgun. Guns. There are some, here. I can't see them, but they're in the trunk.
Nuns, MUNs, months.
The engine revs, and the car drives itself in a direction possibly known to it.
There are ghosts dancing here too; but there is no one for me, so we pass them by. We can always make-believe. We make our own rituals.
She drops me off a few metres? away from there. I close the door shut behind me, and look down at my shoes for a while. It's a comforting thing to do, no matter how old you are. I trace the dotted constellations from them to the ceiling that looks like a sky.
I stare at my finger as it floats over the white shapes it draws in the colour. It is my grandparents. My Dadus, Mummum, my Thami.
I don't remember them.
They are dancing.
They are surrounded by a nimbus of satellites. They are oblivious to it.
They glide on the ground of slumber high above me, hand-in-hand. Lost in Sleep's waves of choreography.
A tear cleanses my cheek. I don't feel it, though, and this is when they notice me. Though I think they knew all along.
"Hush", they say, or whisper, rather. "Hush", that's all. They smile, right at me. The smile sticks to the air between us, not wanting to leave.
Their cloud is raining now. It is pouring itself down into a pool of water a little away from me. I walk towards it and step into the freezing current. I put my head in, and let out that breath. I am completely submerged. A carousel of flames and waves.
There is lightning. It warms the pool. My hand clutches the next bolt by itself. It burns a hole in itself. There is a ring of sizzling gray smoke right in the centre of my palm. I don't feel it, though.
"Hush"
There is a faint tug at the fishhook. I follow it, intrigued by its respect for longed-for family gatherings.
It is a flower. A daisy, I believe.
Heave, sieve, leave.
I sit on the moony floor beside it. It plucks itself out of the ground and floats to my hallowed palm. It stitches itself into the purple, sealing it.
There is a light coming from it. It moves from left to right and back, like a lighthouse. I follow the light for a little while, pretending it will eventually have a different direction to travel in. It does not.
I roam in straight lines, playing make-believe with myself, and the flower; though it doesn't seem all that invested.
I pretend to be going in endless circles, a satellite; part of a nimbus, watching my grandparents dance, hand-in-hand.
#satellite