Pew(25)

He started dealing the cards into stacks. One for me. One for him. One in the center. I mean, it’s fine. We’re cool. But it doesn’t matter to me if we hang out or not—and I don’t think we have anything in common really. Not really. Other than not being from here.
Nelson set a king down between us. Two heads. Four hands. A king. I’m not even doing anything here—I don’t know any card games. Guess you don’t either?
I shook my head.
Figures. We continued setting cards atop other cards, cards in pairs and alone. Taking cards and discarding cards, making order, making chaos, shuffling. An hour passed like this. Nelson produced a second flask from the ankle of his boot. We drank it, finished it. I softened into the night.
It became clear we had invented a game by accident, all the rules unspoken. We each won and lost. We spanned some time together. When a train passed, we pressed our hands over the table to protect it from the gust. Somehow we both knew what it all meant, what the game meant, what it was for.
I had this dream the other night, Nelson said, do you want to hear about it?
He swept all the cards together, then shuffled and redealt them, not looking at me, then stopping to look at me.
I only ask because people think other people’s dreams are boring. Do you? Do you think other people’s dreams are boring?
No.
Me either—not if it’s a good one anyway. Anyway—it was one of those dreams that you’re not in, it’s just something you’re watching happen to other people. And it was this meeting or something, all these scientists and philosophers are there, giving speeches—I guess it’s sort of what I imagine college could be like. All these experts and stuff. And there’s this one person there who decided to change her body into a horse’s body. Like—she decided that she would only be happy if she could change herself into a horse. And she’s spent her whole life inventing these drugs and surgeries to turn herself into an animal, and little by little she’s changed herself into a horse and this conference is … maybe it’s like the first time she’s publicly being a horse. But something about the surgery meant that she had to become a baby horse first, and her skin is almost translucent—have you ever seen a newborn horse?
I shook my head.
Well, she really looks like one, maybe even a premature one, and she can’t even walk yet, so someone is pushing her around in a wheelbarrow and also she can’t talk but she’s invented this device that turns her thoughts into words for her, so that’s how she’s giving a lecture about this thing she’s done to herself. And she’s saying that she might later change into a different animal, then a different one, and that it’s a way to keep living a longer and longer life—because this woman, for some reason I know that she’s maybe sixty or seventy or something. Like, super old. And also, in the dream, I sort of knew that it was a controversy, that some people thought it was not right of her to do this, but everyone that was there was just listening to her talk through this speaker thing … out of the wheelbarrow.
Nelson put down a ten of clubs onto the stack and for some reason he stopped talking and we resumed putting our cards out on top of one another, taking and giving.
I mean, I can’t stop thinking about it, but it’s not that big of a deal. It’s just a weird dream. I keep thinking about that lady and I keep thinking—you know, she’s right and everyone else is wrong. I don’t even know why I bring it up—probably just playing cards reminded me for some reason. Roger told me when you have a dream it’s just about you and you—that all the characters in the dream are just parts of you, talking to each other. But—I don’t know. It don’t matter or anything.
We were quiet for a minute, then Nelson won a round of our invented game.
I just thought it was funny, he said. Or stupid or something. I had the dream like a month ago, way before you even showed up, just so you know. So it’s not about you. I don’t care what you are. It doesn’t make any difference to me.
As Roger drove us away from Tammy and Hal’s place, down curving dark roads and empty fields, the moon was there, same moon as ever, hiding behind thin clouds. Nelson got out of the car without saying goodbye, taking slow, short steps toward the monstrous house that kept him. I watched him, not knowing when I’d see him again. Roger shouted something after him, some kind of thanks or concern, and Nelson threw his arm up—a dismissal, a goodbye.
When we got to Hilda and Steven’s house, Roger turned to me, his mouth hesitating at a word. He started to reach out to touch my shoulder but put his hand on the edge of the passenger seat and said, It’s … um, I really think it’s all going to work out just fine.
Steven was on the porch, drinking from a silver can. As I came up the stairs, he stood, opened the front door, and shouted inside—
Hilda!
I stood still on the porch stairs. Nothing for a moment. Then footsteps coming from somewhere in the house.
Go on inside for a minute, Steven said to me. Hilda and I just have to talk for a minute, then we’d like to speak to you before bed. There’s cold drinks in the kitchen.
I drank lukewarm water from the kitchen faucet, then went to the room where the parrot lived. It was hunched on one side of the cage, its feathers flared the same way hair rises from a cold body. I sat in the armchair beside the cage and looked out the window for a while, looked at all the plants in the dark.
The kingdom of God is within you—the parrot said. The kingdom of God is within you. Within you. Within you. Fuck you. Fuck you. The kingdom of God.