I dreamt that I was watching my parents. They were lying in bed. The bed was in the dining room – where we’d set my father’s cot up while he was dying. I was watching them breathe – my mother crying and upset but finally setting down and they fell asleep next to one another like they hadn’t in years. I nodded off and woke up in the moonlight to see that my father had stopped breathing. But I didn’t want to wake my mother yet. Let her have one last sleep with him I guess.
I went down to the basement which was brightly lit. None of the flickering fluorescents that actually existed down there. Almost surgical lighting. I walked around in circles through the night. I tried to sleep. Walked instead.
As dawn came up I climbed the old red stairs to wake my mother and break the news – but my parents were both sitting up in bed and laughing. I went to join them, so happy that I’d been wrong – but then I woke up.
It’s 4am. My Dad’s been dead for a decade. I get up. Wander around the house. Try to go back to sleep. Walk around in circles. //
