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I dreamt of you on the night of my grandmother’s funeral.

It had felt strange that day, to say your name, after so long. It was inevitable, though.

“This is only the second funeral I’ve ever been to.”

“Who was the first?”

“Her name was Meg.”

That is the simplest explanation. I remembered you, therefore, I dreamt of you.

 But you were so beautiful. Your face was, at the risk of sounding cliché, radiant.

Not like a Proactiv commercial radiant. But in the classical sense of the word. A glow. And your hair was red still.

At one point, you tucked it behind your ear. Or at least, I think I remember that. It’s hard with dreams, like any memories, to keep them pure, unadulterated by imaginations, exaggerations, colored perceptions. What you wanted to have happened, what should have happened.

But still. I think you tucked your hair behind your ear. At any rate. Red.

You weren’t dead, obviously. But never had been. We were at a crowded stadium, the kind that probably neither of us have ever been to. We talked. You can’t know how much I wish I could remember what we talked about. But anything I conjure up at this point is sure to be a lie. I don’t remember.

It was strange, to have this experience on that particular night, just a dozen or so hours before I would begin to contemplate my own death. Sit back, make a hard analysis of my life, my past and current choices, and what choices I’m willing to make in the future, and realize that the road I’m on inevitably leads to you. I’ve got a good while yet, but a road is a road is a road.

You were happy. So happy. When I woke, I had to think so hard about what was true or not. I had these two images in my head. One was you, as I had just seen you, and the other was a sort of x-ray. A stop-motion film of a head being torn apart by a bullet from beneath. What do you call that soft part, between your chin and your neck? I don’t know. But I had these two images, and my mind was desperately trying to reconcile them. One, or the other, but certainly not both.

 I don’t know. Maybe I’ll see you again. I have a lot of sleepless nights ahead of me. Consider this an open invitation.