last night, in my dream: it's the end of the world, and we're north, hundreds and hundreds of miles, in a cabin in the middle of a grassy meadow. it's hers. her partner is there, her kid. i'm staying with them. remember to close the screen door, she tells me, or the coyotes might get in.
it's sunny out, everything gleaming with that unreal sheen the most vivid dreams have. my room is off in the corner. she and her partner on the other side.
why last night? why so suddenly? as i sunk into my degree, decades ago, i became so focused on the day-to-day — essay, assignment, midterm — that my friends who weren't part of my program started to disappear. this is on me, of course, but also on them: it takes two for a friendship to fade, though we never think of it that way at the time.
she has always been my example of how the world is so large, and yet so small. after high school she went overseas and ended up waitressing in a town less than twenty miles from the village my dad grew up in. then, when i went east after i was done school, several provinces over, i ended up in a writing group which was, improbably, led by her brother.
maybe this is a lesson: you're not as small as you think you are, not as insignificant. if you were loved, you're remembered; decades later, someone is thinking about you.