Like Anybody Would Know a Crow by Neal Clayton

Author:Neal Clayton [Clayton, Neal]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781666748383
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Published: 2022-09-30T22:08:18+00:00

40

Man Lost at Sea

Dreams come from inside you. That’s what health class taught us. Dreams are the way your inner mind, your subconscious, works on its problems.

But some dreams come from somewhere else. They have to. Because you hear words and passages you cannot believe were already inside you. You hear things you would not think of yourself. Things from holy, secret places can come to you.

And that scared me. Because maybe Martin was right.

Maybe God was dealing me a blow. Because I had taken graphite and drawn those hominids down into our house.

In the depth of my sleep a dream came back, same as one I’d had during the hurricane project. I appeared to a man lost at sea. Except this time when I woke I was thinking, that’s me I’m looking at, lost and halfway dead.

I hovered over him from banks of fog and he could see me and talk to me and I didn’t touch the water. His voice was rusted and croaking, and he held his throat with one hand.

“I died a month ago.”

He looked up out of the hold of his broken boat with his eyes big and bright like dark jewels. He was crusted and salt-white, rag-bearded. His hair spiked up from his head in breezing clumps. His clothes were grim and frayed.

“I died a month ago and that yellow fire up yonder burnt clean through me. Burnt me wide open. Skinned the meat right off the bones and I was a little tiny scrap of breath.”

He gripped my arm and breathed right up into my face.

“And this little boat give me birth, right here. It give birth to me into a little envelope. Happy are they,” he huffed out the words onto me, “happy are them who go down to the sea in ships, and let it be unto me,” and then he fell back. His eyes rolled and he whispered to someone else in a rush of breath, “from all the perils we beseech thee.” And he opened his mouth wide, gaping.

He pulled back close to me, rolling with the gentle sea surface, “I saw white all around me. I saw white fire leaping off in bright rings.”

I see the bright rings. I see the fire. I rise away. And I wake. Heart pounding.

But no. I couldn’t blame God. No matter what Martin said. I’m the one who took the pictures. I was holding the camera. I’m the one who didn’t know what I was doing.

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