I don’t know how dreams work, people say they are fragments of days, things left unsaid, tongue rolled, hard swallow, yellow photographs in a suitcase, messages sent unsent, things that resurfaced from the bottom of a bog, heavy, not half decayed but in their glory, nobody ever stole Bruno the amber-eyed beagle with a silver buckle engraved a clover leaf, Bruno bumped into the revolving glass door, scratching on reflections until the little girl let go of her balloon and the wind lifted it into the sky, clear and vast, when dreams drift they grow light, people say the difference in a minor and major, in weight, the sudden shift from obsessive repetition to a clean cut, from hairy flesh eating lions to apple blossoms swaying, that difference makes dreams inconsequential and impossible to part with, to lose a body and see the black hands on a white clock arching back, putting a two-tier lunchbox into a locker with sharp, rusty edges, walking into biology and sitting next to someone forever gone, someone loved and deserving of an apology, looking down at the dissection to see that it was not a frog but the face of someone else, someone coming to the meeting tomorrow, a jolt in dreams is never a jolt because I am floating, the air dense but smooth, it is not yet time to wake up, outside the window, dreams are marathon runners on a circular track, spinning off into orbit where they decelerate, synthetic jerseys balloon and flutter like red parachutes landing on a patch of green grass, where Bruno leaps to catch, slow down the motion I want to see what I threw – a tennis ball, Bruno returns, frantic for a treat, I rub his soft, velvety ears, and wake up happy.
Thao Vu graduated from Eastern Nazarene College, National Taiwan University, and is writing her debut novel through the MFA program at Virginia Tech. Her recent and forthcoming work can be found at Bending Genres, BULL, Fork Apple Press, MockingHeart Review, THIMBLE, Villain Era, Zin Daily and at www.vuqythao.com.
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