In the dream, you’re taking a nap in my childhood bedroom. There is horse wallpaper and stuffed animals in piles. Red sunlight pours in through the window, casting slow-moving shadows. The room is breathing.
I sit down beside you and draw you into my arms. A breeze blows through the room. And what happens next, I don’t know how else to describe it except as a heat shimmer. You’re glowing, as though lit from within, and as I hold you, your body starts to shrink. And as you shrink, I can see hazy after-images of the old body left behind. You shrink and shrink until you’ve become a baby, bald and white as a knuckle. And then I release you, and when I do, you grow back into the man you were before, and you do not wake up, do not even stir.
When I told you about this, you laughed and said, “I don’t usually dream.”
—Art by So-Ghislaine