He was in my dream last night... A rare cameo appearance. Usually I am searching for him. Searching and searching.
He was wearing blue jeans and standing in the kitchen. Leaning back in the corner against the cupboards between the sink and the stove. Resting on one leg with the other crossed over at the ankle. He was eating breakfast from a large white soup bowl. Weet-bix, milk and banana. He had almost finished it. He always did just leave a little bit in the bottom, infuriatingly. Just one mouthful left at the bottom of the bowl. His spoon resting, not in the bowl or in the sink, but on top of fresh tea towel he'd just used as a serviette to wipe his mouth, scrunched up and left discarded on the bench.
"...what if you aren't really here?." I was saying to him. Because even in my dreams I know he is gone. I touched the right hand side of his face with my left hand to feel the stubble along his jaw line.
"What if..." I continued. "It feels like you are here, that you are real, but really you're not. You are not here at all. You don't exist anymore."
In my dream he didn't understand. Because in my dream he knew he was alive and I knew he was not.
He didn't answer because in my dreams I hardly ever give him any lines to speak. I find it hard to remember the pitch of his voice, it's timbre.
"I'll never forget the sound of his voice." Stan said to me one day.
"Really." I responded. "I can hardly recall it at all. Except for 'Hi mum' or 'thanks mum', or 'love you mum' ...which is the last thing I remember him saying... Or was it 'night mum'?"
The last time I saw him alive I kissed him on his right cheek and felt his five-o-clock shadow against my face.
So in my dream he just looked at me. He didn't look at me like I was nuts and he didn't look at me like he was confused, he just looked at me the way he would if we were both in the kitchen together and he was eating breakfast.
And then, because the dream had no where to go, it blended into something else. And I left him behind in the kitchen.
