I don’t understand why you don’t say anything.

 -

          The man driving was unfamiliar to me, and in place of the radio, there was a record player right where the console would be, right between the two seats. The sunlight waned like in a sepia photo with tawny bands of light crisscrossing the interior of the car. The man smoked a cigar, so every time he had to shift (I could tell it was an old model with a three-on-the tree) a little curtain of smoke wafted through the air. 

          I was watching from the middle of the back seat. The record player was small and actually playing something funereal by some antiquated singer, someone nasal who howled about longing for her man to come back.

          The light polished the shiny black circle as it spun. It was hypnotizing. The man turned a corner and the record skipped. He cursed. “My man got a heart like a rock cast in the sea…” the record sighed. Why is that familiar? The car jostled on what felt like railroad tracks and this time, the record screeched. This time, the driver rolled down his window and spat. The car rumbled over what I guessed was a country road, but I couldn’t see out over the windows, they were too high, or I was too low. Every time we hit a bump or turn, the needle raked across the record and the man got more and more angry.

-

          I wake. She is listening. Waiting for me to respond. I’m in my bed again after days of traveling, days of arguing, long tedious conversations about dead family members and how to strategize around living ones. The room is fat with her question.

          “What good would it do?” I answer her question with a question. Moving my jaw at all is a quantifiable tax on my remaining energy. My four-day old stubble is at peak scratchiness.

          She takes a huge breath, an exaggerated breath. The sound is so soothing, even though she didn’t mean it to be.

 -

          I’m selling books. There are two employees, both young, nerdy males, and they defer to me, so I know I am the manager, maybe even the owner. It’s fusty and disorganized, but I decide it’s mine. There are books fucking everywhere, all the books I want, all the books I believe in. I take a big, smug breath. We all take a breath together because we are so glad to be here. So what if we don’t make money. Ha!

          One of the nerds cuts off my self-congratulations. “There are some broken things in the case,” he informs me doubtfully. “We thought you could figure out how to fix and resell them.”

          I examine the case expecting books but instead, I find crumbling doll parts. A live salamander with no head. There are other things that look like tiny skeletons with oily pools of flesh that must have fallen off the bones.

          “Ew,” I say.

          “Yeah,” say my employees. I am trying to fashion jewelry out of a headless salamander when she says:

-

          It would do a lot of good. It would do both of us so much good. You let me make all the decisions, take on all the risk, and then when it doesn’t go your way, you blow up at me. And you pick this fight. Now.

          It’s a serious allegation, but when she rolls over with her back to me, the sound of the expensive comforter rustling – it’s like the ocean.

-

          I’m on a beach, except I’m pretty sure it’s not even me now. The tide is out; there are miles of empty, gleaming wet sand. I look down and I’m holding a plastic bag with a fetus in it. Its bulbous, overgrown head is sticking to the film of the bag with one expressionless eye. I am not shocked, or rather, this other me isn’t shocked, but do I look around on the beach for anyone, anyone I can give this bag to. The urge to throw it out past the break is overwhelming, but somehow that seems inappropriate.

 -

          I then cough myself back into consciousness, my eyelids weighted with fatigue, and I manage to say, “It wasn’t that big a deal. I’m over it.” The statement doesn’t have the desired effect, which is to placate her. I know because she says:

 -

          There would be nothing to ‘get over’ if you would just talk to me.

 -

          There are cubicles, many, many cubicles with old rotary phones in them. There are people dialing, the little wheels spinning and unspinning. It’s not unpleasant, the whirl. They dial, but hang up, then start over. No one actually makes a call. No one talks.

          Now I am seated, doing the same. It’s repetitive, but almost soothing. A door bursts open in the far corner and I stand up and look over the cubicle wall to see a giant owl blow into the room, flapping its wings so hard that papers fly around.

          The owl skids to a long stop, and all the dialers stop too. Everyone waits. I wait.

          A man wearing a suit, I guess he’s the boss, walks up looking annoyed, and says, “Someone take care of this.” Another door opens and two men in painter’s uniforms strap the massive owl (it takes two of them with much flapping) to a stretcher and carry it back out. Everyone goes back to dialing and hanging up.

          It doesn’t have to be this way, is what I think she is saying, but her voice is so faint. I believe in talking things through.

          “So do I! I believe in talking things through!” I shout from my cubicle. I say it into the phone. Is that a problem, I wonder?

          “You what?” she is saying now loudly. I look at the receiver. What else did I just say to her?

          Dear God. Why won’t she let me sleep? I cannot say this to her. It would hurt her. We are having a conversation. But why, why does she need to do this right now?

 -

          There is an airport full of naked people all trying to get on one flight. I am horrified to discover that I am also naked. We’ve all got shoes on though, which makes everyone look even stupider. In the distance, I believe a volcano is erupting. And that is why we all must leave. But there is no way I’m going to sit in those coach seats knowing someone’s bare ass was there before mine. It’s a long flight and this is the last one. The bodies are squeezing in tighter, and some of the passengers actually seem to be enjoying it. Will we have to take off the shoes to get through security? This is awful, and I just know I will die of some horrible disease long before the plane lands. And where is my wife?

 -

          I’m aware of commotion. She is saying something. I can’t tap back in. She’s asking if I am awake. You were talking what were you saying –

          I want to tell her, yes, I just fell asleep in the middle of our conversation at 1am after traveling for twelve hours. Yes, I find my dreams, even the most horrible ones, more interesting than our stupid fucking low-level arguments where you tell me all the things I’ve done wrong, or don’t do at all.

          But this would be cruel. It would hurt her.

          “I’m exhausted,” I say it into the pillow, partly to muffle the words, and partly to staunch my probably terrible breath.

          “So am I,” she says, as my eyelids drop and my brain goes soft.

- 

          Magenta mobiles float in an otherwise green room. It’s a café, I guess, without anything to eat or drink. There is a lot of interesting facial hair, which makes me self-conscious that I just shaved. There’s some kind of rock star in the corner, I can tell because his outfit complements the décor and he has by far the most radical facial hair.  That’s when I realize that there is art on the walls and the rock star is the artist. 

          So I turn, as one does, and look at the painting closest to me.

          It’s her face. My wife. Unmistakable the way her eyes don’t exactly line up, her lips still plump but little jowls starting to show?

          In this painting, her body is just a bunch of violent smears, pinks and browns, like less offensive versions of blood and shit. She is smiling in the next one, her naked hip thrust out, and sagging. There are paw prints, like a dog tried to bury something in her crotch.

          In the corner, I can hear the rock star artist going on and on about how my wife is the perfect subject for his themes of urban decay and longing for true anarchy. In the next one, it looks like she is wearing pasties and barfing up birds. I think they are swallows. Clever, dude, I sneer inwardly.

          He is saying, “Her expressiveness and range of emotion were exactly what I was looking for,” and the serious people around him nod.

          Have you met her, asshole? I am wondering as he gabs on, she has one mood: mad.

          And then the crowd parts and another painting comes into view: she is drenched in blood, holding a puppy underneath each arm. The puppies look worried. My stomach turns when my wife steps in front of the garish picture frame.

          And she looks incredible, like the first day I saw her, except more grand, more statuesque, and the party chuckles and pats their little hands together, as though it was all for fun.

          She comes over to me, smiling like she has ten thousand times, except of course this time, she is some kind of velvet rose, some kind of higher version of the woman that I married.

          And I get it, and I bolt awake. I have to explain everything I just learned, and no, I’m not trying to shut her out, no; I’m not leaving her. I want her mercy and her tits in my hands. But it’s too late. She’s already asleep, her breathing even and shallow. She’s already a wolf on a silver rock somewhere.