irony

i dreamt i watched the world slowly burning

there was fire everywhere, so i started running until i could find someplace where there was no more fire, i ran through both american coasts and zigzagged across the heartlands until i wound up in my grandparents' house

except it wasn't their's anymore, it was my parents', and the woods were gone and the hills were all rocky and jagged because my grandfather's dying act had been to sign the whole chunk of land over to paper companies and coal miners

now it seemed like incredible foresight, and as i came up the weirdly exposed hills the smoke on the distance seemed less threatening, and after i got there and hugged my parents, you came in, because you had followed me all along those same coasts and heartlands and hills; i was dreaming, remember, and i wanted you with me so bad in any world that you had no choice but to appear

that night my parents were in the living room, mom was watching tv with her back to the big glass doors leading onto the porch which looked out over a few dozen miles of countryside and towns, but her chair had been dragged over to that side of the room; she was holding hands with my dad, who was standing, watching determinedly out the window as the fires approached; you were somewhere in the back, lounging, tired from all the travel

i stood next to dad for a while watching the fire, watching it collect in heaps and roll off the sides of other hills like lavaflows, watching it gather behind silhouetted trees, then fewer silhouetted trees, then even fewer, until it was just a pulsating red glow around a single burning tree, which then too would fall

then, i said, "i should be out there taking pictures," and nobody stopped me (because this was a dream and i didn't want anyone to stop me), so i went and grabbed my camera, and asked if you wanted to come with, and when you said yes (still a dream, i wanted you there with me) i was surprised (didn't know i was dreaming) but happy

woke up smiling about the irony of taking a photo of the apocalypse