The Meadow 131 remained closed. It was quiet. He burst out of the barn, his arms cut from the door, looping through the short grass to the fence, hesitating for a moment, his hands on the barbed wire, and then jumping over, tearing his jeans, crawled to Mary. Her eyes were closed, and because of her red hair and the last light of the sun, it looked like she wore a halo. I stood near the fence. Blood bubbled from her nostrils. She was breathing. He took her shoulder in his hand, as if he was picking up one of our chickens, and shook, hoping to wake her. In the distant, in the past, in the time before the crash, I heard the voices of Mom and Dad; and then her parents started yelling and running, their dog barked and flashed yellowed teeth, and all those noises echoed off the sides of the houses and our old, red barn. Sometimes when I dream, I imagine the outer world, the real one, the one we all walk in, run in, stand and sit on, creeps into my slumber; what other reason would there be for a bear in a top hat to intrude on my dream of eating ice cream on the docks at Waits Lake? There were already catfish swaying on the edge of the dock, holding fins, staring at the moon, which rained down salt and vinegar chips. They tasted fishy, the chips, not the catfish. They were so nice, young and old lovers staring at the same orange moon. I wished I could’ve stayed in that dreamscape, but Dad insisted on shouting from our front yard this morning, which caused Mom to say what she never said, “Shit.” I heard it through my open window. The sun sliced through the closed blinds, and my pale blue walls glistened where the light struck. She said it all the time, lately; she said it looking out the kitchen window, looking at the barn, watching the blobs of feathers roaming the corral, as if she knew something I didn’t. “Well, look at this shit,” Mom said. “Can’t fucking believe it,” Dad said. “Get the hose, Adam.”
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