Tara: Hm. Well I’d have to disagree with you on that front. But this is a long disagreement to have over a protracted dinner, and I should really turn in now if I’m going to be productive in the least tomorrow.

Russian Accent Guy: All right, lady. I’m excited about our date. Sleep well.

Tara: Thanks, you too. And as a parting diatribe—I HATE sleep. As a concept, I mean. It’s such a waste of time. The only time it would be useful as a voluntary device would be to block out the world when having a rough day or something. Though actually, ice cream can take care of that too.

Russian Accent Guy: Aw, what about dreams?

Pour a little salt, we were never here

—Bon Iver, ‘Skinny Love’

Good Winter

I never stopped riding the buses. Around and around, around in circles. I rode till I ran out of thoughts. Till I fell asleep, till the part of my head that hurt from laying on the cold pane poked me awake. It was dark, by then, and cold. Always cold. Always snow and soaked boots, because it was dark and it was cold and I couldn’t see where I was going.

When the buses stopped running, when the driver squinted at me through the dividing glass because even he had noticed me amongst the endless streams of people getting on and off, and he didn’t know why I had been sitting there for six hours but he wanted me to leave because he and the bus were done for the night, then I had to step off my rolling friend. Sometimes he had to wake me up and I could tell that it made him very uncomfortable.

Once I was off the bus, being anywhere felt too stationary, the still air too suffocating. So I walked around, making paths, taking circuitous routes that skirted a return home. One day, I did not stop walking. I had dreamt of wolves that night. I had dreamt they were baying (I could assume for blood, but I could be assuming wrong. This was, after all, a very strange dream) and I was inside a small house made of logs; I was inside, where I had lit a fire for warmth and light, and they were outside, in the cold and dark and snow. Baying.

I know this was a dream because I do not know how to build a fire.

I didn’t stop walking because I had had that dream, and I was not sure when I had woken up. And I kept walking.