Sparrows hum disfigured melodies as memories become days. I awake dazed and bemused by the dampened soil caressing my back. Apparently I have fallen. Asleep beside me is the abstraction of a woman, her deep blue eyes the only diversion from the torn dress by her side. She looks familiar. Ah, that’s right, I drew her yesterday; carved her limbs from palm branches and stainless steel, built her a mind and filled it with fading photographs, stole a complexion from a mannequin and placed it gently onto her plexiglas spine. And she was good for me. But her eyes of limestone never saw my cloud as her home, instead wondering what it’s like to dwell in flooding dirt or to seed barren earth. I fulfilled her desire and turned my cloud into vapor—a last resort much better in practice than on paper—resulting in her by my side and this recollection of mine.
She awakens.
I smile.
She walks away.
I have yet to stand.