A world without the color green. A man who repainted all the seashells on the beach.
Sometimes I dream about tollbooth operators, the half-glimpsed faces with cigarettes on their lips, their left hands forever clutching a quarter and a dime in change.
Each morning I wake to the imaginary babble of fully-formed news reports and television clips while skating across sleep.
We might remember crouching on the sidewalk, frantically trying to gather the teeth falling from our mouths—not the circumstances that led us there.
Night walk to the corner bodega and I nearly forgot to wear my bandana.
Last night I dreamt about a god who was angry because the noise of humanity prevented him from sleeping.
Dig the old lady who cut a tiny hole into her surgical mask so she can keep smoking her Benson & Hedges.
These are long days of suspension. For a moment I convince myself that everything is just fine. That I must have imagined the whole thing.
Ash Wednesday and people walk the streets with smudged crosses on their foreheads. A beautiful ritual, ancient and haunted.
The first gods must have been born while we slept.
Waking up this morning, the world doesn’t feel much different from the illogic of sleep.
I stared at the empty cabins along the shore, half-wondering if I was still dreaming about my father.
