I dreamed that n/n's getting married. The wedding was to take place the next glorious summer, somewhere in the mountains of Louisiana. I didn't even know there were mountains in Louisiana, but I imagined the glaze of the warm, violet sun against his copper skin and brown curls, and I imagined him as a shepherd leading a herd. The girl he was to marry was a mutual friend. She was short, too short for him. I thought, a moment in eternity, that he and I would make a much fairer pair. So when he reached to hug me, long limbs and the smell of pine enveloped me, and I told him "you've grown taller." He laughed and shook his head, "not at all. It's you who's grown."
On his fingers, n/n wore these exaggerated jade rings that only exist in dreams. They were three long stripes of specked green/grey jade on his thumb, index, and ring finger. Then on his middle finger, a huge silver ring glinted like a symbol of manhood and prowess. But his fingers were thinner and more graceful than I remember.
We talk. We walk. We dine at the strangest places - in rooms with gaudy carpets, silver candle holders, animal screens, mahogany wood, dark wallpaper - places I can only appreciate in dreams. I told him, it's a lot easier to talk to him now that he was getting hitched, none of that pent up glow, but instead of wishing him all happiness, I told him so, that I adored him so.
In dreams, he's a blur of army green and coffee brown, with a smile that embraced my coquette verbs. I'm feeling Scarlet O'Hara, but he's no Ashley. He's out of this rundown village to find another village. He's marrying a short girl whose name I forgot, and in all my lies is a debris of truth, and feign, heart, feign.