From a Crane

I had a dream, a while ago. I only remembered it today. I was on a crane, with somebody else, I don’t remember who. I think it was a girl, but I can’t be sure. It didn’t really matter.

We were high up, way above the ground, and though there was wind, buffeting the crane and tearing at my shirt and skin, the other person didn’t seem phased by it. I remember we talked for a while. I don’t remember what about. Maybe life, maybe how things were going, maybe just about the weather and the view. It doesn’t really matter.

I remember talking about them. About who they were. About how we knew each other. About how much they meant to me. I felt at home with them, and, though we were hundreds of feet up in the air, with the raging wind tearing at our clothes and whipping our cheeks red, I felt safer than I’ve ever felt before. Like everything had finally fallen into place, and there was nothing to worry about, no uncertainty to dread, no mistakes to regret.

I was sitting on one of the bars, my back against the support. They were a little ways away, standing, with nothing below them but a rod of metal and a few hundred feet drop. They asked me if I was free. Confused, I asked what they meant. They said it didn’t matter. That if I were free, I wouldn’t need to ask that. I laughed, and said of course I was free, I was right there with them. They said nothing.

I remember them turning, slowly, their eyes sad and distant. While I don’t remember their face, I remembered their lips, as they contorted and shaped words I could not hear over the roaring wind. I cried out for them to repeat, saying I hadn’t heard them. They shook their head, a slight, sad motion, and then they were gone. They didn’t fall, or fly, or disintegrate into the wind, just… vanished. And though the wind still tore at my shirt and whipped my skin raw, a feather slowly, calmly, gracefully drifted into my lap.

And that was all I remembered.