Her emotional circuits overloaded, Cypress pushed her body into street clothes. Her pants wouldn’t come over her hips easily; she was still sweating. Her blouse clung to her back like someone chasing her. The day had been too full of old people; people she’d thrown away and let die somewhere nobody would find them, but somehow they came around anyway. Came around full-faced, familiar, and old. Cypress wondered if old memories could make you smell different, make you not know what you were doing. She took deep breaths on a slow ten-beat, and exhaled. In this meditative state, she came upon visions of Mel Edward’s “Curtain for William and Peter.” She wrapped herself in the delicate barbed wire, winding the chains around her arms. She became a landscape of braided, looped metal, daring some more old, dead, killed-off creatures to cross her path. But some things aren’t intimidated by steel and threats to flesh.

Idrina was on the other side of 8th Avenue, enjoying a Sabrett’s hot dog with sauerkraut. She did have a few vices. Sabrett’s & root beer in the street. That was living in New York, somedays. It was so much more delicious to watch Cypress building moats, sand castles, direct lines to her soul on the corner of 49th Street.

Walking fast, but not without pleasure, Idrina came behind Cypress as she always had, without announcement. Just that sweet tickle round the back of her neck. The smile that offered what could be, whenever Cypress wanted.

“Hi, Cypress. Don’t tell anybody I was eating from a street vendor, please. It’ll ruin my reputation.” Idrina hugged Cypress, who let her barbed wires disintegrate, right there in midtown.

“Oh, Idrina, I’m really glad to see you. I didn’t think I would be, but I just saw Ariel. I can’t believe what he’s done to himself.” Cypress held Idrina tight. Idrina caressed her head, soothing this child so willful, they’d never had all they should have.

“Come on, Cypress. I’m gonna take you home. You don’t need to be out here in all this.” Cypress didn’t resist. She knew Idrina wouldn’t hurt her, not again. This time they went to Idrina’s for comfort, for relief from the loving too much, too many who’d abandoned caring. Some old things lay in wait for the night, deep in citadels where demons play God and memory consecrates our sense of reality. As she slept, Cypress encountered her other worlds, where her scars, fungi, and terrors grew wild.

CYPRESS’ DREAM