aller
1.
I dreamt about Amanda—my sister. We were in a car. It was very dark, and the headlights did not work. I was driving. Amanda was the passenger. We were arguing; I was afraid of driving in such conditions. Direct met! I kept saying, my hands sweaty on the leather steering wheel. We were on a long, winding highway. Quadruple lanes. It was snowing. I drove slowly and paced my breath against my sisters. Big fir trees were covered in snow on either side of the road. Many cars and trunks careened past us, driving faster and faster as we slowed.
We are going to be late, my sister said. I don’t care, I replied. She laughed, breaking the tension. I joined her. It felt good.
As the sky lightened, we eased deeper into our seats. My hands were shaking. My neck hurt from the tension. The car was cool; I could see my breath if I exhaled sharply. My sister watched the road. Do you want me to drive? She asked. She did not mean it; I could hear it in her voice. She did not want to drive. I shook my head. I got it, I said. And I did. We drove for hours together in the semi-darkness. People honking and whizzing past. We stayed at the edge; we went slowly. I could see a few paces in front of the car. It was snowing. It was foggy. It was icy. My fear melted with the crystals on the windshield. We drove in silence, feeling and not thinking anything at all.
2.
I am sleeping in a white bed. The bed is pressed against two other beds beside me where other people sleep. We are in a long room with many single mattresses. White. Linens and pouffy pillows. My arms are flung over my head on the pillows. They are too high and hard. My neck hurts when I put my head down, so I scooch down the bed. My feet hang off the end, and my hands are propped on the pillows. Everyone is sleeping. I am drowsy. A woman speaks over a speaker. Bells tinkle. The water is running. It is meant to be soothing. And it is. I fall asleep, and when I wake up, it is very early. Someone should have woken us! I yelled into the room. People were sitting up and flattening their bushy hair. People were sitting on the bed’s edge and looking for their shoes. People were confused; what time was it? The woman next to me asked. I don’t know, I said. I am mad. I had wanted to wake up in my bed alone. I am made to wait in line to exit. The door is cold. It snowed, and the streets were icy. Everyone wants to leave at the same time. So I wait and wait.
I get to my car and look in the glove compartment for my phone. It’s dead. It is too cold to hold a charge. I start the car and plug it in. The fir trees are dusted with snow. The sun is spinning gold; light shines, and the birds sweep and twirl overhead. The sky is pink as the sun rises. A new day; I am recalcitrant. I turn on my phone. I have missed calls from him. Where are you? He writes over and over. I am waiting. He messages eight times in ten minutes. The last message has two exclamation marks. There are no emojis. I call him. No answer. I call again. No answer. He is asleep. I didn’t want to go to his house, either—two places I did not want to be. I want my own bed, and now it’s too early for sleep. I am rested. I feel restored. I don’t remember falling asleep in that room. I don’t remember anything.
3.
He’d been spoken. You could taste it on him when he crawled into bed. It is not your or his bed; it’s someone else’s, and you don’t like the blanket. He wriggles closer to you, and you squirm away. You don’t like the scent, the itchiness of it. You feel nauseous. Get out! You want to say. You don’t say anything. You roll over and give him a cheek. You feel desolate. Alone. You want someone to hold onto. You want someone to hold your hand. You want someone to get tangled in the bedsheets with, and it is not this person lying beside you.
There was another time and another man. You wanted to be alone. You must tell me when you come; you keep canceling our plans. He’d said. He was angry with you. He had a plaid shirt (blue and green) and that little toque. He hadn’t changed at all in ten years. It was a sign of indifference. A sign of comfort. A sign of stagnancy. People were meant to transform on the outside and the inside. The missing link was the mind; he was intelligent in his way. This is what she told herself. She wanted to sleep alone when she was with him, and so she did.
She liked to be in her bed with wool socks. A sweater that had long sleeves. The cuffs ended past her fingertips. She was cozy enough. She said she would come to be with him. Why are you like that? He’d asked. She shrugged. She was indifferent, mirroring his body language. Will you come tonight? His need was too great. She was bored. Maybe, she said. He clenched his fists. You have to if you say it. I will be at my home. I will call you later. She left him on the street. It was raining. He had a smoke in his hand. He looked good like that, standing alone away from the girl.
It is very comforting to sleep alone. The plants in the corner spit their leaves. She can hear the leaves hit the wooden floor. When they land in the dirt, they make no sound. She wakes up to six leaves in the dirt and is surprised. Why can’t you settle? She yells at the plant. It is mirroring her body language. Just be honest: be yourself, the plant says. It has three leaves left; the fruit dried up on the boughs months ago. The girl had plucked them one by one and felt how dry and bitter they’d become. The girl did not water the trees on time. She made a note on her phone and set an alarm to remind her. She watered it, and the leaves were still spitting off, only in the evening. It was the tree’s rebellion. You forgot me! And she did. She was so confident in her aloneness. The girl practiced being with others; she put the tree in the corner by the bed and sang to it when she woke up. She sang the song he taught her: La Ilaha Illallah. The leaves will grow back, her mom said. Just be patient.
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