Wind chimes skittered through thin air. Like the air liner winking out below me. And I wonder what the jet setters on flight 3-oh-something (I heard later) were listening to. When things went to white noise on their approach.
My dad bought my brother tap shoes. For my funeral, my brother admitted. I scratched my chin because my Dad and I are on the same plane. Our memories more or less lost and expurgated. We converse now and then like foot-steps upon water. Only the ripples are ulcers.
Life is what I’ve made of it. Except that I can only make from what I remember, which usually never happened. Some kind of ad hoc solipsism. Liar comes up often. I twirl my spoon through a new cookie candy cereal wondering about anemic pregnancy. And bad coding.
My heart syncopates when I hear a diesel engine howl through the night. Because I don’t really believe. Trash collection would happen at 3 AM. On a Sunday. And I tighten my blanket about my ears. And feel myself. Losing sleep. Minutes slipping by like headless black pythons.
Dad told me they were real. He told me 90% of the universe is dark space made of things we have no names for and no way to see and in the dust between the stars an entire kingdom of evil could hide and no one would ever know. Wind chimes again. I wonder what it feels like. When they touch you.
Dad and I. Are fighting over conflicting memories of conversations we didn’t have. But that’s just what mom tells me. What does she know? Is a legitimate question. Irrelevant, eventually, because one of these days the mid-nap turbulence that snaps open our eyes will be a four engine flame out.
