The Open Matt Project

Good Mourning

Sitting on the train this morning, reading my book as usual, my attention is stolen by the snap of chewing gum. I look up briefly enough to see the cookie-cutter Berkeley bike girl give me a bored glance.

She looks familiar, I thought.

A few pages of my book and stations later the man sitting in front of me gets off the train and the girl sits down. I'm immediately smothered in the unmistakable odor of "essential oils." Oh, I know that smell. I know it. Oh. Yeah. It's her smell. The back of her head has those little wispy curls she used to have when her hair was tied up. I hated it tied up. Her ears were thin just like she had. There was a flower tucked into her wristband. Just the sort of thing she would do. It's not her though, right? Maybe her sister. But her sister was older, no? Good lord that smell is positively nesting in my nostrils. I can't wait to get off this train. Let me off this damned train.

The phantom Denali, unsatisfied with cameo appearances in my dreams and paranoid flashbacks during half-wakened life, has not failed to tap my bean nearly every day for the past two years.

When you dream of the dead, at least they speak the same language; awake, their presence confounds.