The Illustrated Encyclopedia of an Imaginary Universe

Smiles and eyes with laughter, standing straight, one arm upraised, hand turned outwart, fingers fanned, the other as an opposite, a gaily decorated vane. Beautiful spine frozen, a snake fossil crushed by thousands of years. A resurrection of old, tired bonfires, still smoldering but never truly relinquished of duty.

There’s something small, dimunitive, but attractive. A life lived in the lower case. Tiny shoes on tiny feet. Toes curled up in a life-long stretch, muscles loving and resisting. Sheets tangled up around delicate, pearl ankles, head has lost the pillow, staring out with mirth and contentment, focusing on a dark blue satin robe, ephemeral, draped over the back of an ivory chair.

My fingers trace the gentle notches in her spine, from the base of her graceful neck, down through the valley of her shoulders, into the small of her back where the world is most welcoming, fertile, homeward. The boundary of a satin white against a satin skin and I pause, reflective. Turning out to the windows that overlook the bay, the world seems brighter than ever before.

She twists impossibly to look over at me, her eyes bright, teeth flash, a smile more alive than I. She reaches out, runs her elegant fingertips along the veins on the back of my hand, and asks, ‘Do you dream?’

‘I do,’ I said, replying, watching the fabric of all this dissolve before me.

Her smile deepens, widens, encompasses me. A gateway to somewhere I never thought I could be again.

Says she, ‘I know you do.’ A cringing apologetic fringe rounds her words, her look. She lets her hand rest on mine and I can hardly feel it anymore.

‘Don’t be a fool,’ she says. ‘Dream on, you crazy boy, dream on. But don’t be a fool.’

With finality: ‘Not for me, not for anyone.’