Dream Report #43

            Paranoid that my second holes were closing, I called Darryl. First she was a voice on the phone, then she appeared in my bathroom with a needle and ice chips. Through the window, there was green in the sunset. My ears swelled with anticipation. 

            Darryl sterilized the needle while I put on a record. Stevie Wonder’s Higher Ground sounded throughout my apartment, distributing waves of electronic clavichords to all the walls, corners, and rooms. Darryl inhaled the rhythm. The bassline became her pulse. Watching her watch herself dance in my bathroom mirror, it dawned on me that I was in love with her. To this, she was oblivious. I turned my back to the reflection. 

            “The needle’s ready,” she announced over the music. In the pits of my arms, I felt sweat collect. Let’s not rush, I thought but did not say. Darryl smiled to show she understood. I took a seat on the toilet lid. From her mouth came numbers. “Forty-three, forty-one, thirty-seven, thirty-one, twenty-nine.” Darryl’s prime-number countdown was her preferred method for marking a remainder of time. I admired her capacity for memorizing large number sequences and later recalling them. “Twenty-three, nineteen, seventeen,” she continued. Avoiding the sight of her needle, I looked down at my lap. 

            In my lap my hands cupped the ice chips, and the ice was melting into water, and both of my hands were pierced, and the water was dripping through me, puddling on the floor by my feet. This was all wrong. My touch was pierced, my hands entirely numb. Outside the sky hung black. It was night. Darryl was still counting. “Thirteen, eleven, seven.” I tried to scream, but no sound came out. 

            The bathroom floor flooded rapidly. The water line climbed to Darryl’s thighs. In the corner my clawfoot bathtub hissed with steam, catching Darryl off guard. She glanced at the tub and slipped. The water tugged her under. For a reason I couldn’t understand, I made no attempt to help her. Instead, I counted in my head starting from one. When I reached forty-three, she still had not resurfaced. The water was to my chin. With wounded hands, I could not turn the doorknob to escape. Darryl was drowning. Stevie’s voice carried in from the other room. He was singing: 

            Lovers, keep on lovin’

            Believers, keep on believin’ 

            Sleepers, just stop sleepin’

            ’Cause it won’t be too long 

            The only way out of the bathroom was through the window, which required a password to open. My bathtub knew the password, I was sure of it, but we were not on speaking terms, the bathtub and I. In fact, I had not drained her in weeks, not since she had intentionally scorched me with her scalding water, leaving my back and belly blistered, my arms and legs seared. No, my tub was not going to aid me. I needed Darryl. 

            Around her body I wrapped my arms and threaded her hands through the holes in my own. I sensed her fingers flickering numbers. First five, then three, and finally, two. The countdown was over. Stevie’s record scratched and fell silent. The water, now pressed against the ceiling, began to fill my ears, nose, mouth. You know, in your company, drowning feels a lot like floating, I thought but did not say. Darryl relaxed her palms because she understood. In a single gulp, the water swallowed us like two twin pills. Low in her throat, the bathtub chuckled.