Erin Kanzig
Dream Girl
I had a dream, she said, of driving in a car, parallel to train tracks. Well, I wasn't driving. I was to the right of the driver, merely a passenger, with no control. It was safe, the driver was my father. Then, like static on the TV, he shifted into my sister. A semi truck swerved into our lane, and the static came zapping into my field of vision, repeatedly, and each time, father, sister, father, sister father sister fathersisterfathersister until the vehicles, on the verge of crashing, did not touch. My father swerved onto the muted grey and green bunch grass separating the road and the tracks and my sister braked, in control, but the gas and brake pedals switched, and we were going faster, and the steering wheel had no control, and we jumbled and jumped over the two metal lines and careened, wildly, towards the smooth surface of river. Take my hand, my dad said, and I slipped my smaller one into his. My sister's birdlike fingers clenched mine and the static hurt my eyes, so I shut them. And their voices and mine broke out into one long cry and the impact shot the air from my lungs.
So that was my dream, she said, in part. Under the water, we were not in a car. My father was a lion, shaved of his fur, and he cried large lion tears for he was ashamed of his body, of his nakedness. And I was no one, no physical thing. The static was deadened, slowed. I heard a whistling among the green grass of the river bed, and followed the sound. Two metal lines led the way and my sister was next to me, a shimmering light-no, a sweet smell, the texture of rose petals. Together we made a warm glow that made the whistling sound stronger and my father was a lion and my sister was a smell and my sister was my father and my father was a smell and my sister was a lion and my father was my sister and I was me. I was nothing.
