I know I am inside a
dream. I know nothing is real, and it gives me no comfort.
I am walking up a flight of stairs, a doorway opening at the top. I approach, hearing my boots clomp hollowly on each riser. I come to the top, and turn right toward the doorway, the source of light.
I see across the barren room. The sunlight slices through a window opening, the glass long since having abandoned its post. The light is fierce, cutting a diagonal swath through the gloomy interior, dust motes gyre within the beam, small planets on some unknown trajectory, on a journey to nowhere.
Behind the cascading light, in the corner of the room, sits a girl. I know her, have known her for many years. She is sitting Indian fashion, legs open, feet meeting at the center. She is totally nude, and totally without selfconsciousness or shame. Her slender legs are curved like Cupid's bow, and have the same effect. I am shot through the heart, conquered once again. Her hands rest, palms turned up, on her thighs. Her small pale breasts lie like twinned pearls on a beach in Paradise, open to discovery.
She sees me standing there, drinking her in with my eyes. Her olive skin is so smooth, her eyes slightly oriental, slanted and somehow knowing. As I watch, a single tear flows from one brown pupilled orb and races gravity down the plane of her cheek. I see no hint of anger come from her, no sign of disapproval. At the nexus of her thighs I view a hint of wiry tuft, more suggested than explicit, and the tiniest suggestion of a lighter hue, pink as a spring sunset.
She shifts her legs, draws them together, gathering them toward her chest. The entire aspect changes, and what had been a beckoning tableau becomes a silent denial. No spoken word, no anger, just a voiceless rejection. Just the same as it's been for these last 40 years.