Emilianna

Did I only dream of Emilianna? Or was she real? If she was real, what she taught me was that nothing was real. Or if she was a dream, then she taught me that everyone was dreaming and dreaming was everything. Waking late this morning, I knew that I’d been thinking of her again, her flat down by the river Kelvin, from which the fog and ice would spread in winter at dusk and dawn like nerve gas. Her flat looked out west across the winding river, on the other side of which sat my office, or the building that held my office on its fourth floor in its swelling mansard attic like an upside-down boat.