Bubbles

B efore everything changed I wouldn’t have called myself a thief. No one else would have called me a thief either. And yet there I was walking stealthily in the shadows taking what no longer belonged to me.

It was because of the nightmares that came after Bubbles died. They invaded my dreams night after night always a little bit different but also the same. Sometimes it was a herd of wild beasts the thunder of their marching hooves echoing across the curving landscape as the vegetables cowered in their places shriveling into themselves trembling against their stems. Sometimes it was rain throwing itself down in torrents snapping the roots of the cucumbers and tomatoes swallowing them in swirling merciless waters so when the storm stops there is nothing left.

I’d wake up in a tangle of sheets my hair matted to my forehead my heart in my throat. I’d whisper into the darkness telling myself it was just a dream and then I’d remember that it wasn’t.

There was talk about selling the house already during shivah during the sparse snippets of quiet time when the masses thinned enough for family members to move freely through Uncle Laizer’s living room.