That day last summer, during the height of the bushfires, I came up to visit you for the first time in a month. The sun was crimson and the air thick with smoke and recklessness, lending the day an apocalyptic mood. The beach was empty. I remember trying to think of things to say. When the sun finally surrendered to the night, which was late, you drove me home and we decided not to put any music on in the car.
It was two months before I remembered those long forgotten dreams, and in the split screen of the mind, was struck by the realisation that it I had lived our day at the beach before. That time and space were the inventions of children, like imaginary friends.
There were other times too. Climbing those rocks at your father's farm (you in the red woollen jumper), the weekend we painted our bedroom. Not deja vu, not mind tricks. Days lived before they were.
And now here I am, alone, with these real imagined dreams turned memory turned ghosts. Variations on themes I never asked for and still cannot understand. Some myth born of my DNA and destined to remain lodged in here forever - just enough to make it hard to breathe - and, were they to be somehow removed, would be quickly replaced by shadows.
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