The Scent of Your Breath by Melissa P

Author:Melissa P.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove Atlantic
Published: 2006-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

NINETEEN

Last night I had a beautiful, disturbing dream. I was in it, with Thomas and a little girl. A beautiful little girl with red hair, a round face, and a pair of red, fleshy lips. I was almost frightened at the sight of her; her beauty was disconcerting. She was our daughter.

But in the dream I was at once myself and Thomas and the girl. I could see with everyone’s eyes. I felt part of everyone.

We were dressed in nineteenth-century clothes. Not the sumptuous nineteenth century of the courts but the nineteenth century of the ordinary villagers.

The little girl takes us to the sea. She makes us immerse ourselves in the waves, but we don’t swim.

We stay suspended underwater for a long time. Around us there are octopus, jellyfish, lobsters … the little girl is lying suspended above the void, her arms along her hips and her long, long red hair still growing and flowing beneath the water. Her hair is beautiful and silky, and it grows and grows. Then, at some point, her hair turns white and bristly and starts to shrink back until it finally disappears. Now her head is bald. She’s a newborn baby, but she is still surprisingly beautiful.

I kiss her, I press her to my breast, and she shuts her eyes and lays her face on my neck.

An icy sensation woke me up. I touched my neck and it was extremely cold. That lasted only a few seconds, because I shut my eyes again and went on with my dream. The little girl has died in my arms and I have floated to the surface, passing through a cave. Thomas stays down there, looking at her and kissing her. But I have left only in a physical sense, because I’m still seeing through Thomas’s eyes. He picks up the little girl, rises to the surface, and when he reaches the cave, he lifts her into the air and cries, “She’s alive! She’s alive!”

You, dressed all in black, run and shout with joy. I go on looking at her beautiful face, and realize that she isn’t alive at all. She’s dead. But I pretend she’s alive. We all pretend she’s breathing.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.