Adam Peterson
Never before had the sun risen from a lake of rose petals, but that doesn't mean we suspected anything unusual.
This is how the world should be.
The petals burst into golden sparks, cats cartwheel down the street, and turtles gift us jars of rosemary honey from atop their shells.
Seems about right, we think. Life is dope.
Our favorite actors help us into unicorn-drawn carriages. The carriages ferry us into the woods where trees drop to us their cherries which are even more delicious for having fallen into our honey jars—
Then the axe gets Jill and holy fucking shit.
The axe did the Charleston so well that no one suspected anything. We didn't even put down the puppies who'd hopped into our laps to lick our faces.
Which is why Jill only had her smile to protect her when the world turned on her.
We scream and run, some of us spattered with Jill's blood which tastes like blood not strawberries or some shit.
Possibly this is not a dream at all, Terrance says as we sprint toward the gun store. The evidence is beginning to point that way, certainly.
We tell him he's being hysterical, but—in Terrance's defense—he's a little bit on fire.
Who could have guessed that bubbling brook held not water but gasoline?
Not us, that's for damn sure.
This isn't a nightmare either, Terrance says. According to my calculations, we're awake.
His argument is solid—
No dream involves skeletons rising from the black earth. No nightmare requires us to beat them apart with shovels, then spend hours in city council meetings debating an ordinance to bury them again.
This is just how the world is, he says. And our latest science indicates that it sucks.
We forgive his cynicism because he's still smoldering, and it's either the smoke bringing tears to his eyes or the words he never got to speak to Jill.
Jill, he wanted to tell you—
When the clouds stop mortaring us for long enough to think, we picture her face in the moment before she entered that lonesome place that's neither asleep nor awake.
God, we couldn't take it if Jill came back as a skeleton, but as far as we can tell only the racists are being resurrected.
Yeah, Terrance says, things aren't ideal.
No, it's not, but we can remember a time when we believed they could be. Were we wrong then or now? What traumas did we ignore in order to survive? What horrors did we forgive to enjoy a sunny day?
Baby, it was a lovely world until you left it, Terrence says over Jill's tombstone.
So it's come to this—
Our last hope is that lying to the dead isn't the sin lying to ourselves turned out to be.