In my dream one night, I was back in my childhood neighborhood in the suburbs, walking as the woman I am now with my father, both of us wearing our sensible shoes, his growing middle age growing at his middle waist, my future age hinting at itself on my arms and my face, a wrinkle between my eyebrows, a salacious extra fold of stomach between my ribs, and it’s drawn to my attention how strange the trees look along the horizon, grey trees along a grey sky, thinner than they are in real life, all bent uniformly to the left like bowing soldiers awaiting a king in his carriage down a long dusty road, the trees glowing with a thick line at their borders of leaves and bark, so that I know in this dream world, dark matter shows us the shadow selves of trees and perhaps my own as well

but I ask my father Xyy xxy xy xxy xyx xxy xyx xy xyy xxy xyxx xy¹Wei she ma zhe xie shu kan qi lai zhe yang zi, and he asks What do you mean, and I say Xyx xy xyy xy xy xyxx, xxyxx xy xy xyy²Kan qi lai bu yi yang, sheng ti bu hao, which I say with such ease, another way you know this is a dream, and his smile back to me is a little sad, a little incomprehensible, just like the time he’d announced he was taking the whole family on a day trip to the beach that weekend—meaning we’d wake at the crack of dawn, pile into the car, drive for hours, race to catch the ferry, maybe miss the ferry, catch the next ferry, get tossed along the water at great speed in the brave little boat, arrive at the island, throw ourselves at the best thin crust pizza and fried clams of our lives, break up a screaming match between my brothers who managed not to get themselves killed this year, walk to the beach in woefully inadequate flip flops, sun bathe and icy ocean soak, apply sunscreen and it washes off and apply it again, go back to the ferry, maybe miss the ferry, catch the next ferry, return on the same little boat, eat an overpriced fish sandwich with mountains of onion rings, break up a screaming match between my brothers who try to kill each other each year, pile into the car, drive for hours, fall out of the car, shake off the sand, stumble into the shower, crumple into bed—

my father had announced his plans and I had lied about having work, his smile then just like his smile now, his round cheeks and his sagging eyes full of love and lack of understanding, the two of us always searching for the right words in the right language but it’s never quite right and so at this moment, to answer my question, he repeats my observation, Ah the trees look sick, and I repeat back his words, xxyxx xyxx xxyxx xyxx xxyxx xyxx³Sheng bing sheng bing sheng bing, the words rolling off my tongue and off his hairs, unsure and hesitant on his upper lip, thin and clinging in wispy waves on his scalp, which he scratches gently as he looks around at the shadow trees, saying When your mother and I moved here we tried to pick a good place but now I’m not so sure, to which I nod my head and confess it is the same with me now, Xy xy xy xxy xyy xy xyyx xyy xyy xxy xyy xy xy⁴Wo ye bu zhi dao wo xian zai yao zhu zai na li, because there is no good place for people like us to live, because it’s only fitting that we’d each journeyed so far, he across oceans and me as far away from screaming matches as possible, only now to find each other here in this dark matter dream world, no more a part of this landscape than as part of any other, perhaps ourselves thickly outlined in a shadowy glow along our skin and our shoes, perhaps ourselves breathing like the trees, something in the air not quite right but not quite wrong enough, something that makes us bend like soldiers even as we try to root ourselves, but my father does not look alarmed, he only smiles his youngest son smile, innocent and childlike, a little unfocused in the eyes, then he tells me Not to worry, there is no right place to live, just that you live in the right now, and he pats my shoulder, awkwardly and a little too hard, but I don’t mind, I say Xyy xyy xyxy xy xy xy⁵Xie xie baba wo ai ni, yet his eyes turn confused—he no longer understands me—and the grey sky fades to white, and the grey trees become saplings again, and it’s okay, I know my father feels the same, and everything dissolves away, and now I am awake.