It’s 2:30am and I can’t sleep. I know it’s 2:30am because I flipped my phone over to check. I can’t sleep because my eyes are crazy itchy from allergies. I can’t sleep because I am dealing with a work decision which for others would be a simple. I can’t sleep because I’m frustrated the house is a mess and I am the only one who seems to notice. So I put my headphones on, those original Apple iPhone ones, and stream the 49ers radio broadcast into my ears. It’s halftime, they are losing. I try to sleep but cannot. Around 4am, after Garoppolo’s third pick sealed the game for the Vikings, I unplug the earphones. I’m cold. Sleep comes.
I dream I am in the kitchen. There are dishes that need washing. There are towels lying about. There are appliances that don’t quite appear right. This was what I felt before bed, when I was washing dishes after helping Elisa with her English homework. But the kitchen in my dream is different. It is a combination of the kitchens I’ve spent time in. At my parents home. At my first apartment. At my first house. At the first place I lived in Beijing. Where I live now. And as I looked around this kitchen I realized something wasn’t right. The appliances were all on but doing odd things. Microwave on with nothing inside. Juicer streaming tonic water. Bluetooth speaker working without power. Just as this oddness dawned on me I heard a cackle. I turned and then I was in my parents’ kitchen, near the front door. I looked left down the hallway and there was a young woman, maybe 20, petite. In an other worldly shadow. Looking at me with neither a smile or a hiss. I woke up.
Later that morning I drop Elisa off at school and start to walk to the subway for my commute to work. I’m listening to a podcast and one of the guests is talking about driving in Ireland, on the wrong side of the road. My mind flashes to when Elisa was six months old, Lydia four, and Aidan five. We were on an island in Malaysia, driving on the wrong side of the road. Three small kids, far away road, we still managed a romantic dinner along the shore with Elisa in a crib and the elder kids playing with the waitresses. We could do anything. Until someone not me fucked it up. And I felt sad, just really sad.