I wake from a dream, unsettled and shivering. In this dream, I am being persecuted and railed against by some sort of organization, something like those people who protest outside the funerals of soldiers. I am afraid to go into public, because they are always there, and I don’t stand too close to windows for fear of someone taking a shot at me.
I have no idea where this dream comes from, but it doesn’t easily want to leave me. I get out of bed and wander down to the living room, thinking I will turn on a few lights and read for a while until the chill has left my bones. It is rare that I have a dream that throws me off-kilter like this, and while a part of me wants to savor the feeling, the larger part of me is ready to chase the lingering smokey fingers of the dream out of my head.
I find Juteau sleeping on the sofa. I don’t know if she sleepwalked here or if she made a conscious decision to make the sofa her bed for the night, but either way, I do not turn on the light. There is enough of a glow from the streetlight outside to be able to see her, and I watch her a few moments: her hair spread up over the pillow, away from her body, as if she were falling horizontally against gravity ; the curl of her fingers held against her cheek, one hand held in the cupped palm of the other; the gentle curve of her belly, visible in the sliver of space that is between the bottom of her T-shirt and the top edge of her sweatpants. She has kicked the blanket off of herself and onto the floor. I pick it up and drape it over here again. She murmurs something nearly inaudibly, and I lean in for a closer listen, but she doesn’t repeat herself for my benefit.
I am struck with the sudden and powerful urge to put my hand on her forehead, to stroke it softly until she awakes, and to ask her to come to bed with me. I am feeling like a child after a nightmare, in need of soothing and comforting until I can fall back to sleep. I do not wake her though, because that would be both rude and perhaps a little creepy as well. I am a big girl, and I can handle myself when woken by a bad dream.
I wish Bez were here.
Bez would know how to fix it.
It’s a talent of hers.
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