paper birds.
Last night I couldnt sleep. I'd go to bed and lie awake worrying about mundane crap. I'd pace awhile and sleep again only to be washed over by this deep, almost unbearable feeling of homesickness that brought me to tears. God knows what I'm actually homesick for. So I stayed awake and petted the cat. I made my bed and prayed, and stumbled across the fourth psalm. I read it over and over, scanned it until my eyes were out of focus. Then I fell asleep.

I dreamed the strangest dreams. I remember one.

I was by the ocean, in a cove. The sun was shining and there were lots of people around. Friendly people mostly, I knew all of them. This was, I understood, our summer home. We all had docks and cabins and we were all sunbathing.

I was swimming out in the deep water and I saw it coming, black and thick and stretching across the water. I saw the oil freighter mashed against rocks a mile or so further out and the oil was creeping in my direction. I swam back to my friends dock and started screaming. I don't know if I was yelling in tongues or in english but it was about birds. I was suddenly so angry that this meant that all the birds would get covered in thick, black oil and die. I yelled and my neighbours saw the oil and they tried to set up barriers like fishnets for it but it didnt work. And the coast guard was laughing at us and my neighbour fired a gun in the air because she was so upset. But when the gun fired everything suddenly went quiet.

And all the birds lifted out of the water and flew up and over us inland. And as they flew they turned into paper cranes and that flew so close to us that they ruffled our hair. And the paper birds gave us paper cuts as they brushed past us flying to safety.