The Third Post

9.

I dream of doing something I've always wanted to do, but in the morning I can't remember what it was. I wake to find Cathreen's face beside me. Usually she tutors at this time. She says I need to do her lesson for her--she's too dizzy.

I nod that I will and then roll over in bed.

"You need to go now," she says. "It's time issue."

I've obligated myself to do this for her, by causing her pain. "Okay," I say, "I'll go. Just don't bother me. I can wake up on my own."

She doesn't seem to believe me. I'm only a few minutes late.

10.

I teach her student about the growth of San Francisco, a subject I don't expect him to be interested in. He says he wants to go there and find gold. "There's no more left," I tell him. "They've found it all."

11.

Now I'm at her sister's house. She asks what I wrote yesterday. When I read it to her, she says I'm making her look bad. "I'm not," I say. "I'm making myself look bad." She says what I've written is strange.

She voices a few complaints. "Where's the part about how I'm hero?" she asks. What she means is we've been watching this tv series about people who develop superpowers--she says hers is knowing the future, how she's been buying wide-sleeved, loose-fitting clothes for years and now they're easy to fit on and off around her cast.

I write what she asks.

12.

A couple people from home have had the chance to read this by now, and one asks how much of Cathreen's hair burned. A lot or just a little singing, he asks, as in from the verb "to singe," not "to sing."

13.

I sit by my nephew and write. Cathreen's sister had a baby five months ago, an active thing with a big voice who thinks he has two mothers.

"Hello," I say. He starts to cry. He doesn't remember me.

When Cathreen tells her sister what I'm writing, they say it's "evidence."