The Dream of a Fire Engine

Without the sun filtered through closed eyelids, without the siren along the service road, without Grandpa’s ginger-colored hair, Mother’s lipstick, Daughter’s manicure, firecrackers, a monkey’s ass, a cherry, Rei’s lost elephant, without communist or past tense, or a character seeing her own chopped-off feet dancing in fairy slippers, or Mao’s favorite novel about a chamber — the scientist of sleep has claimed that without warm blood a creature cannot dream.