I dreamt that I was back in the neighbor's backyard, the guy who had a grill that he would take any excuse to fire up, the guy who had the daughter that I was best friends with in kindergarten, the one with the blonde hair that she always wore in pigtails, the one with the brown eyes that I always misremembered as being green until I looked at old photos, the one who had aspirations of being an actress since she could barely walk, the one who eventually moved away to the city to pursue that dream and left us behind, the one that I never saw or heard from again; and it was a late summer afternoon, one of those days that should have been intolerable on account of the sweltering heat, but my parents and I somehow ended up coming over anyway; and my mother was chatting up her mother, their glasses opaque with condensation; and my father was silently inspecting the grilling, nodding his head in approval every so often; and her father was talking about some hollow thing, the new moisturizing formula he was having good luck with or something like that; and I was on the grass with her; and she was wearing her hair down for the first time that I could recall; and we were running around, sticks in our hands, making believe that we were dueling knights, cowboys in a standoff, wizards casting spells of battle; and she was putting on those voices, the ones her mom and dad had her practicing, the ones that they said would make her a star soon enough, the ones my dad would later say he heard no potential in; and if I felt anything about the voices, I don't remember; and we went on like that for a while, hooting and hollering, forgetting that there was a world around us; and eventually the food was done; and we were called up to eat; and it was those cheeseburgers that I always thought were a little too large; and we ate contentedly while our parents traded whispers about big rains down south, rivers flooding, severe damages…
I dreamt that I was back in my friend's old car, the one she drove over to my house whenever we had plans to hang out together, the brown Toyota that always gave me the impression it was going to break down but never did; and it was that chilly, overcast day when I met you for the first time; and sure enough, when I looked to the right, there you were, next to me in the backseat, the black mouth mask that you wore everywhere back then contrasting with your bright hair; and you were not looking at me, but I knew right then, as I did the first time I lived through it, that I wanted to be with you; and I watched you for a while as you talked with her, barely paying me any mind except when she asked for my input; and I remembered that we were going to that local pizza place, the one that doubled as an ice cream shop, to have lunch; and we were trying to decide if we wanted to go somewhere else for dessert; and she was talking about this crepe place that she wanted to check out; and we both agreed that it sounded like a plan; and you kept not looking my way; and I remembered what you later told me, that you were nervous about meeting me back then because I was new, that you thought I was cute but didn't want to put me off or make me think you were weird; and I remembered how silly we both thought that was in retrospect, the notion of you somehow making me dislike you; and I smiled to myself; and she began fiddling with the stereo, trying to get that band we were all into at the time playing; and even though she had been driving that car for years and years, it seemed to be a struggle because all she could get out of the speakers was the sound of rushing water, so quiet as to be nearly imperceptible no matter how much she moved the volume dial…
I dreamt that I was back in the house, the one in Indiana, the one I lived in for most of elementary school, the one we left behind because dad's job kept moving him around; and I was sitting on the old living room couch, the gray one right in front of the television, the one I spent late nights on with the light of the plasma screen washing over me like ocean waves whenever I was too afraid to sleep in the dark; and the television was on the news channel, as it always was when dad was around, but I looked around me and didn't see him anywhere; and the news channel, with its little heads arguing back-and-forth about grownup things I didn't understand, always bored me, so I began searching for the remote, hoping to get some cartoons on the screen, but I couldn't find it anywhere; and when I tried to get up and search the living room, I found that I couldn't, that some invisible force was keeping me sat there; and I tried to call for mom and dad to come help me, but if I made any noise, I didn't hear it; and I soon began to hear a creaking of floorboards from somewhere outside my vision, which made me think that my cries had been heard after all, but it was just the cat trotting over to greet me; and as it jumped up onto the cushion next to me, I tried to look over at it, but I found it increasingly difficult to turn my head away from the television; and I began to pay attention to the news for the first time that I could remember; and the news was breaking, a report about a massive river flood in Pennsylvania; and the reporters spoke with hushed voices and damp eyes as they described severe damages, the struggle to uncover missing people, questions about why nothing was done about the local dam when engineers had been warning that it was unstable for decades…
I dreamt that I was back in that coffee shop, the one we went to for our first date, my T-shirt unironed, your sweater neatly pressed; and I was sitting in the same chair that I did on that afternoon, the one in the corner; and next to me on the little glass table was the same drink you recommended for me then, the iced dirty chai latte, which I had never heard of but trusted you on because I knew nothing about coffee; and for a while, I was enraptured by the slow-trickling condensation on the side of the little plastic cup and the miniature cubes of ice floating on top of the liquid, but I eventually looked up at the chair on the other side of the table, the one you were supposed to be in; and I saw that you were not there, that there was an emptiness where your adorable smile should have been; and I looked around; and I saw that every other seat in the shop was occupied with people sipping drinks, reading books, tapping away on laptops; and no one was looking at or talking to anyone else; and the silence, which I hadn't noticed before, now seemed to hang thick over the whole room like a fog; and I sat there for a while, tapping my foot, waiting to see if you would walk through the doorway and take your seat, but you never did; and after a time, I stood up, strolled past the unresponsive patrons, and made my way to the bathroom in the back; and I flicked the light on to reveal that it was much more spacious than I remembered; and there was an enormous, pristine rectangular mirror on the back wall, far too large for the ordinary-looking sink to justify; and I walked over to the sink, let the water run warm, and splashed my face with it a couple times; and I looked up at myself reflected in the glass; and I tried to turn the faucet off, but the handle wouldn't budge; and I saw that the drain was clogged, the water rising toward me; and I stumbled back from the sink, the sound of the flowing water growing impossibly loud in my ears…
I dreamt that I was back in the old school building, the one that had no windows anywhere, the one where the only light to be had inside was that ugly off-white florescence that hung from every ceiling, the one that always had a doorknob breaking off or a pipe bursting in the hallways, the one where the odor of diesel would occasionally come floating down through the vents and hover all around us, the one that they tore down the year after I graduated; and I was in the science classroom, the one that the biology teacher used, the one with the black desks that sat two students each and shimmered in the dull light, the one with the faucets that always sprayed more strongly than you expected and splashed water everywhere, the one covered from floor to ceiling in posters cautioning us to wear our gloves and keep our goggles on during labs, the one that was gradually stripped bare as the teacher prepared to move out; and it was in the middle of the process, not quite barren but not as chock-full of decorations and knick-knacks as it used to be; and I was sitting in the second seat from the right in the front row, the seat I got in my senior year because, the teacher claimed, the kids with the better grades got to sit closer to the front; and the teacher was lecturing with a slideshow about the water cycle, about how water rises into the sky and then comes back down; and the slide he was on had a diagram of water evaporating out of a river at the bottom; and I imagined that the vapor rising into the atmosphere was a newborn child being ripped from the arms of its mother, that the child kicked and screamed to no avail as it was dragged away, that the mother had known this was going to happen since the beginning, that she was still as a statue and said nothing as water was separated from water; and as I was thinking this, I began to hear whispering around me, rumors bouncing between mouths and ears; and the news eventually reached me, of course; and what I heard was that there was a giant storm headed our way, that it had already hit the next town over, that their river had flooded in minutes, that everything had been wiped out and washed away for miles around…
I dreamt that I was back in your room, the one at your grandmother's house, the cramped one with pink walls, the one with the crucifix hanging high on the wall opposite the bed, which I always found humorous; and it was my first time there, back when we were still getting to know each other; and I thought about how polite your grandmother was when I walked in, as she always was when I was around, but even back then, I could sense that something was off with her, that something in the way she spoke to us wasn't right; and it occurred to me that, cuddling you alone on your bed with her watching television in the other room, there was nothing she could do to drive a wedge between us; and you turned to me all of a sudden, mischief glinting in your eyes, and asked me if I had ever kissed anyone before; and I, suddenly flush with nerves, told you what you doubtlessly already figured out, which was that I hadn't; and before I had the chance to say anything more, you cupped my face in your hands and pulled me in; and even if I had time to brace myself, I'm sure that I would have been terrible, but you showed that you didn't care as you smiled and giggled; and I joined in, my nerves melting away like the snow outside; and we kissed a few more times, you noting gradual improvements that I wouldn't understand until later; and eventually, we ended up just cuddling, feeling each other's warmth and weight; and I got to thinking that I could stay in that room with you forever, that I never had to leave for anything, but I eventually heard footsteps coming down the hall; and, thinking that it was your grandmother coming to check on us, I pulled myself away from you and opened the door; and when I did, I saw that the hallway was empty; and I assumed that it was just my imagination, so I turned back to you, only to find that you had disappeared; and I made my way to the other room to find that your grandmother had disappeared too, that the TV was warning of severe storms and flooding right where we were; and I stumbled outside, made my way to my car on the side of the road, and got in; and right as I slammed the door shut and looked forward, I saw water rushing towards me at an impossible speed…
I dreamt that I was back home, at the house my parents still live in, in my old room with its green walls decorated with my mother's paintings, lying on the gray mattress that saw so many shouts and cries over the years; and it was an overcast June day, one of those days in the summer where it becomes unbearably humid, giving you the expectation of a rain that never comes; and my blankets were in a heap on the floor, kicked off in my sleep the night before; and I just kept still for a while, watching the ceiling fan spin on its lowest setting; and my attention was eventually drawn away by the sound of rustling outside my window, which I knew was the trees in our front yard swaying in the wind before I looked out; and the sky was turning dark and foreboding; and I thought idly that it was going to rain soon; and that pleased me because of all the fond memories of watching the rain from inside when I was younger that my mind was retrieving for me; and I sat up cross-legged in my bed to get a better look outside; and I saw the long lawn grass, the cracked gray asphalt beyond that, the line of black cars parked along the street; and I stood up to get a closer look at the cars; and I thought I saw figures inside them, but before I could make anything more out, I heard scratching at my door, which I knew right away was the cat, that precious gray tabby; and I went to open the door, but when I did, I didn't see anything on the other side; and I figured that the cat had run off somewhere, so I stepped out into the hallway and called its name, but it didn't show itself; and before I could go hunting for it, I heard a massive rumble outside, as if a giant monster was moving through the neighborhood; and I rushed back into my room; and I looked out my window; and I saw that the black cars had vanished, that in their place was a wall of water rushing toward me at an impossible speed, that it was as tall as I imagined a tsunami would be when I first learned about them in school, that it had already torn through the neighbors' houses, through the street, through our front lawn, that it was going to be upon me before I had a chance to run…
I dreamt that I was back at your apartment, the first one you tried moving into to get away from your life back home, the dingy one with the dirty windows, the one that the previous tenant had left reeking of cigarettes, the one with the ratbag landlord who never fixed anything for you, the one that you said was still home despite it all; and I was in your bedroom, the cramped one that was taken up mostly by the mattress you picked up from who-knows-where and slept on, which you didn't have a frame for; and it was a little while after you moved in, when you first started to make the place really feel like your own, when you put up some band posters and old paintings on the walls, when you got a little nightstand next to the mattress, when you strung up some lights to add color, when you started thinking about finally getting a bed frame in; and I was on that dirty, lumpy mattress, with its unexplainable stains; and I was alone, nothing but my thoughts and faint music from the other room to keep me company; and I waited for you for a while, expecting that you were just in the bathroom, that you would soon enter and snuggle up to me, but you never did; and after a time, I wondered if something had happened, so I pulled my phone out and texted you to make sure everything was alright, but my messages were never even registered as read; and I began to seriously worry that something was wrong, so I stood up, my phone still in my hand in case you got back to me, yanked the creaky door open, and strode out with urgency; and I made my way to the bathroom, my first guess for where you would be; and I knocked on the closed door; and I asked if you were in there; and I heard your playful voice on the other side; and it told me that everything was fine; and it asked me why I was asking that when you had just left for the bathroom a little while ago; and I was about to make up an excuse and walk away when something started to seem wrong to me; and I grabbed the doorknob, barely thinking, and pushed it open a crack; and before I had the chance to glimpse the room and see if you were really there, water was throwing the door the rest of the way open, bursting into the hallway, crashing over me, sweeping me away…
I dreamt that I was back in the auditorium, the one that the school had built special as an attachment to the old building, the one that was so much nicer than the rest of the place that we always chuckled about it; and it was my high school graduation, that horrifically bright day in early June, that day that seemed so monumental until it was actually upon us, that day when I really hoped that I could see more people grinning at me from the audience, but for reasons unknown, they had it early on a Tuesday afternoon, so none of my non-school friends could make it; and it was just my family in the seats, my mom grinning, my dad smiling lightly, my sister pretending not to care but smiling despite her best efforts; and it was the same for most of us, so the seats were mostly empty past the first five rows or so; and the front rows were a sea of older, grinning faces, parents like mine; and I looked around me at the smiles of my classmates, the people I had known for four years; and I took in the slight hunches we had developed, the slumped shoulders, the eye bags as deep as oceans; and I thought about what awaited us, the undergrad programs, the classes at eight in the morning, the terrible coffee, the sleepless nights doing calculus homework, the exams; and I thought about what came after that, the cubicles, the whiteboards, the fluorescent lights, the traffic jams, the retirement parties; and it occurred to me that I was being generous, that we would be lucky to get even that; and I wondered how many of us would go astray, would turn up dead in bogs like we joked, would up and disappear one day and never be found; and then we were on the stage, being called forward one by one, taking our diplomas, shaking the principal's wrinkled hand with applause soundtracking us; and my last name had me toward the back of the line, so I stood there and watched as my friends got to go ahead of me; and I occupied my mind by looking around at the spacious room, with its black exit doors and its passages to and from the stage, and wondering how many angles of attack there would be if some kid decided to shoot us up; and before I knew it, I was snapped out of my wondering by my name being called; and I strode across the stage, grabbed the piece of paper that represented so much of my life to that point, shook the principal's hand a little more firmly than I intended to, took my place in the line of kids showing off their diplomas, and looked out expectantly for my parents, but they were not there; and as I glanced frantically around for them, I saw other people begin to disappear when they left my vision; and the adults in the audience went first, followed by the faculty on-stage; and the other kids disappeared soon after, leaving me alone; and before long, I began to hear the sound of rushing water; and it was soon upon me, bursting in through the doors, cascading down the stars, crashing down from the ceiling, erupting from the floor; and I was swept into the darkness, into the void where I reached in vain for something to hold onto and, finding nothing, opened my mouth and let the water fill my lungs…
I dreamt that I was back with you by the river, the one out in the middle of the woods behind your house, the one we trudged out to almost every time I spent the night there, the one where you saw me cry for the first time when we were juniors, the one that stretched all the way out to the ocean; and I knew right away by the brightness of the moon and stars above, how low in the sky they seemed to hang, that it was the last time we went there, the night after our first year of college, the night when we decided that the distance wasn't working, that we were coming apart at the seams, that it would be better for both of us if we just ripped the bandage off and went our separate ways; and I turned to where I knew you would be; and sure enough, there you were on my left, sitting up instead of laying down beside me, twirling blades of grass around your fingers, avoiding my gaze; and the air was thick between us, as if it had been made heavy by the moisture of an incoming storm, though the sky was perfectly clear; and I opened my mouth as if to say something, to offer some kind of apology or recourse for what had happened to us, but I knew that the time for such things had slipped between my fingers like water while I wasn't paying attention, so I kept silent; and I looked back up at the sky, which seemed to be growing dimmer and further away from me; and after some time, I heard your weight shifting on the grass; and without looking, I knew that you had turned to face me, but my words were floating away from me on some current I couldn't see, so I waited for you to say something first; and soon enough, you did begin to speak; and you said that, while the trees around us might eventually wither away into nothing, you felt in your bones that this moment would never go away, that it would always stay right where it was; and when I turned to you to ask what you meant, I saw that you had disappeared; and I looked back up at the sky to find that its features were faded so much as to be nearly invisible; and I knew what was coming before I heard the rushing water, before I felt the coolness lapping at my back, before I was lifted up by the rising river and swept away; and I didn't thrash or grab as I was plunged into the darkness, for I knew that it would be of no use; and when I was fully submerged, I found that I could still make out the faintest pinpricks of light in the distance, unlike the times before; and I thought to heave myself toward them with everything I had, to try desperately to keep them from drifting further away, but I remembered the way the river's water had flowed around and through my fingers when I placed them in the current's path that night; and I decided to just float there motionlessly; and quite a while after I expected the lights to flicker out for good, I noticed that they seemed to be growing brighter instead; and I wondered if it was a trick until I felt myself in motion, until I realized that I was being pulled towards them; and I began to move faster and faster, accelerating until I was sure that my body would come apart, though it never did; and soon, I came to a stop among them; and I saw that what I thought was the moon was actually you, white and radiant; and you floated serene among the orbs of light, your eyes closed, your mouth curved up in the slightest smile; and I looked into the orbs; and I saw that each one was a memory of you, a vision of us laughing at the lunch table, strolling through the woods, eating junk food at the fairgrounds, the time when we were certain we would grow old together frozen forever in brilliant white amber; and I knew that the promise you made to me the first time we went out to the river, that night when I broke down sobbing in your arms, was coming true after all, that we really were fated to always find each other in the end; and I lived among the memories; and I lived among the memories; and I lived…