Fireworks
I screamed his name in my sleep and woke us both up. I talk in my sleep, often shout and scream and wake us both up, but it was the first time I’d said his name. In the morning he mentioned it miserably. “Malcolm,” he said, imitating me. I nodded.
He heard “Malcolm” but the truth is that if I hadn’t shouted so loudly and woken us both up, the statement would have been “Malcolm, get some balls.”
I remember my dreams very definitely. I live a life. I walk in a maze and meet a girl who wants to talk to me about God. She’s beautiful. We become close.
I carry the impossibly heavy weight of a bald-headed girl in the mountainous landscape of some island, and she gets shot in the neck. I don’t hear the bullet. I am devastated. I ask what to do with the body. A woman says “Go to dinner. Then pay the bill, leave the body on the seat behind you.” I say I can’t imagine doing such a thing. I end up walking a long way and dropping the little corpse into a very clear sea. I wonder if I’ve behaved correctly.
He had let a homeless man sleep beside us. The homeless man masturbated over me. Malcolm felt it was impolite to interrupt him. He said “Let him finish.”
“No.” I said. “You’re a coward. You hate me. It’s disgusting. I can’t stand this. Malcolm-“
He heard only his name. But he had missed so many important events, I felt we’d grown apart irredeemably. When I told him I was leaving he clutched me to his chest so violently that I thought he would break my ribs.
“I’ll change. I’ll do anything you want.”
“I must never write about this. It would be the wrong thing to do.” I thought.
But secrets are of no use to me.
