Chapter 13
Was it a dream or a poem? Was it a dream or a poem?
“Li,” Grin whispers into the still cold air, “I’m coming.”
“Grin,” Li whispers into the warm moist air, “stay put.”
“I’ve been searching for so long,” Grin says in the night.
“It’s better that you don’t find me,” Li says in the dawn.
Grin remembers Frost’s moon proclaiming the time was
neither wrong nor right. Grin looks at the moon above
the midnight frost, proclaiming nothing, feeling nothing.
At least, Grin can project nothing onto this type of moon.
One viola plays a low note. A violin plays a high note.
A meteorite enters the earth’s gravity well and burns up
etching a meaningless symbol on a meaningless canvas.
An imploding star flashes red, white, pink, white, red.
Smoke rises off Grin’s lips. The smoke forms unmeant
letters. “But the signs are everywhere,” Grin insists.
“Signs are only what you fill them with,” Li insists.
“Then I fill these signs with endless sighs,” Grin says.
“That sounds so melodramatic,” Li, irritated, replies.
“Only because you’re not me, Li,” Grin says, irritated.
“Are you sure of that, Grin?” Li asks. “Are you sure?”
Grin thinks. “No, I’m not sure of anything anymore.”
“That sounds so melodramatic,” Li, irritated, replies.
“Only because you’re not me, Li,” Grin says, irritated.
“There you go again,” Li says, rolls her luminous eyes.
“I—I’m sorry,” Grin mumbles. He looks at the ground.
The ground is sound. The ground is a sound that grinds.
Grin grinds his teeth, feels the -d hovering behind him.
“You don’t need to apologize,” -d whispers in Grin’s ear.
“You don’t need to be sorry at all,” -d insists in Grin’s ear.
Grin turns around and blows smoke in -d’s facelessness.
“What are you doing?” Li asks from an arbitrary distance.
“I’m sorry,” Grin says, “I’m simply not myself tonight.”
“But it’s morning, Grin,” Li says. “It’s time to wake up.”
“No—” Grin cries. “Li—no—don’t go! I’ve been looking”
into a pillow Grin’s waking self cries, then sighs. “Li,”
Grin’s waking self whispers. “She is real. She must be.”
Sunlight wiggles through Grin’s bent venetian blinds.
“There was a girl. Her name was something like Li.”
