Impending

Jason and I are in my brother's room.

It is clean, and it smells of freshly washed laundry and old stuffed toys. In the dream, I am half-naked from the waist up, Jason is wearing a fruit bowl for a hat, and we both don't seem to mind. We're eating from a large plate of sush and smoked salmon. We lay on my brother's bed, but we do not touch each other. He begins to confide in me. I, of course, am a most attentive audience. "I miss her," he says, referring to his girlfriend of the moment, "but I like being with you." He asks permission to call her on his cellphone, which he does, without waiting for me to give my approval.

"I can sleep sideways now."

"There's something about their peanuts here that I just can't figure out."

"I play the guitar, pretending it's your body that I'm stroking."

When he ends the call, I walk back to my room. He follows, balancing the plate of sushi and salmon on top of his fruit-bowl hat. I bid him goodbye, then I turn into a dolphin. I am very pretty, rainbow-colored, my bottle nose sharp as a knife, with real gold for fins. He tries to catch me, to put me in his collection, or to mount on his wall, but I'm already swimming far, far away, as my house fills up with salt water, the ocean pouring in through my doors.