THE RECURRING RED SCARF

My father flies down the street, that’s it, that’s the dream.

As far as recurring dreams go I think it's fabulous, whenever I think of it during the day it sort of zooms around my insides a while and then always I get the dream that night, sometimes twice in one night, once when I was sick it came all night on repeat, that was the night I nearly died, they said they didn't know how I pulled through with a temperature that high.

He doesn’t actually fly, nothing Superman or Icarus, there is no effort on his part, he simply floats but with v-v-v-verve.

He wears a suit. He is slim. A white shirt and tie. Like the day he died. Briefcase dangling at his side. Through the living room window of my childhood I saw him walking down the street and in the dream it's the same except he's flying. I’m looking up the street and it’s snowing, I don’t know what I’m looking for in the dream so each time it’s a surprise when he flies through the snow, I can’t tell what kind of a surprise it is, it's almost like nothing, and please note that the word almost is enormous in this context.

And it's always snowing. I never used to think about it but now I worry he might be cold, I am disappointed in this dream’s complete inability to evolve, he should by now at least be wearing a scarf. No wait. I take that back. I do not want the dream to evolve. Forget the scarf, for should it evolve one knitted row at a time surely he would age, he would diminish in lustre, flightability and frequency. Forget I mentioned it.

My grief is also non-evolving, it remains enormous, and perhaps I choose this, he walked home from work handsome in his suit, fell into my arms and died, that’s it.

My mother is old now, she sits in the half-hospital by the window and looks out, a pile of red knitting on her lap, she picks it up occasionally and manages a few stitches, some days a full row, I ask her what she’s making and she always says the same thing, a scarf for your father, maybe she sees him too.

I sit by her side. She is tired. I know there will be nothing left of her when she dies, it's already happening, she will disintegrate and be gone but my father will fly forever.