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Yesterday I had a dream where all the world was art. Where people leaped and rolled, not
marched in pointless line. I dreamt of you, those eyes of shivering blue. I
dreamt all night and woke up cold.
It's daylight now, if you can hear me, and I'm trying to hide from a cloudy sky. I know
enough to know what's coming. There's shelters, doors and laneways. But not yet.
Not 'til I have to. So I stay. Holding myself separate from the concrete surround. I
will not be a part of this landscape.
The stone around me starts to darken, the rain slowly starts to fall. But I'm safe for now. I
watch the ground, counting rhythm. There are whispers, darting like snakes
between feet. Spilling through the cracks in the pavement, like fire and mercury,
water and mist. I just sit and watch. I've tried to catch them before, but they're
tricksy, they tease. There's no point. I just sit here. Watch as they fight with the
falling rain. The tiny shadows they cast, the havoc they wreak. If I closed my eyes I
could almost hear them, but I have to move. The air is thick with water. It beats
against the ground and the shadows retreat, down a drain, up a leg. I find a
doorway, take its shelter. But I begrudge it. I hold myself separate. Looking out it
all looks different. Everything's come loose. The rain does that. The colours bleed
in tiny cubes, and reaching out they fill my hand. Like rich inks running down my
fingers. I touched a tree and marked it blue. I remembered when it rained, you said
the drops would strike the ground as lilies. Explode as fleeting blossoms, denied a
life by lifeless concrete.
The rain peters and people reappear. The city seems to yawn and stretch, traffic and
people chattering in its streets, its blood. Somewhere down the road an echo falls,
then rising, leaping, joins another. People passing. Tap beat tap. A sound, like
dripping water. Building to a rhythm, tap beat tap clap beat. People passing by.
Music hummed in footsteps. I can hear it. This was in my dream, the song you sang
before you fell. You said I wasn't crazy, my eyes were just the wrong way round. I
count the steps and hear the song. Closing my eyes you're with me. In the mess of
it all I hold your hand. I count the freckles on your wrist, the white marks on your
nails. These blue eyed whispers, where raindrops fell to lilies, but something,
something's different, the music's wrong. It's changed. There's someone, her!
That girl. She's coming towards us. Her heels clack, stubborn, out of tune. I shout
at her. Tell her to stop. She's ignoring me, but on an altered course. She's getting
closer and it's getting worse. I reach as she passes, grab for her legs. I have to make
her stop.
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