He sees a bucket in his hands and all he can do is watch the water coming in. This is the form of his dream, but the content is in the helplessness. In his fear, he is struck immobile, frozen, much in the same way that others are struck dumb in utter amazement. The fear is a fathomless, waging fear, seething at the boundaries of the sleeping and the waking. A sensation so grand that it pushes forward and overwhelms him, reversing subject and object. Who is the one experiencing the fear? "He is experiencing fear?" No: "The fear is experiencing him." And then, with little warning, he wakes, fear subsides, and the syntax of the universe relapses into its rightful order.
***
Three cheers for the corners of the room, where walls meet walls, what makes a room for us to live in and huddle together for our lives. Three cheers for the nerves and the sweaty palms and the uncomfortable deliberate stares. Three cheers for the luncheon platter with the delicious souffle brought out by the dead grandmothers who sing "Jungle Love" by The Steve Miller Band and show a bit too much leg. Three cheers for how the world works and steers, like a beautiful, swinging, psychopath schooner. Three cheers for low lights at night, dim shadows in the day, those little moments that maintain a shaky equilibrium between the blank void and the over-profusion of life. Three cheers for the neighbours I don't have, who stare at us through their windows and play harp and timpani naked on the lawn. Three cheers for walking down a street in a massive city at dusk with two bags of groceries and a light heart. Three cheers for the words "boulangerie", and "Salsbury" "poop-tin" (just made that one up) and the Middle English pronunciation of "night" and "smoke."
***
Sleep, that sweet mendicant, is begging for her alms.
Goodnight.
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