The Big Loser

The guardian angel sits in the tree above the black lip of street the man walks down. He calls the man Cargo. The angel sees a pinewood box in place of the man, and the street he walks is a boat, the hull like a coal crater. Somewhere in the real world there is such a boat and box. The angels call these overlays dreams, and believe they crop up because angels can’t sleep but want to — space falls apart when you have unlimited time. • The cargo is rattling in the boat. Maybe it’s just the waves, maybe it’s rats. What’s the difference? Either way: it’s the box. The angel sends the man a happy vision from his past — the time he fed birthday cake to his goldfish after an unsuccessful party. The angel thinks he’s applying lemon oil to the creaky, wounded wood of the box. He knows it’s palliative, but it’s beautiful. • The man reaches the end of the street. He’s a sick man and he starts to ponder death as he often does these days: All of death is right here — the gods, the dark, a moon. Where was I expecting death to take me if everywhere it is is on earth? At life’s close, you’re like the child whose parents step out for a drive — everyone else out on a trip, but the child remains in the familiar bed, feeling old lumps like new in the mattress — the lights off — not sleeping, for who can sleep with the promise of a world beyond the door? • That night the child dreams he’s inside the box. It’s burning hot, the heat coming from bugs and worms raping and devouring one another. He starts the hard work of the imagination, learning to minister to the new dream. Perhaps all that’s needed is a little rain — for everyone to drink and have a bath. Outside: a car humming, somewhere, his mother’s singing.