seventeen years ago in this same f******* house.

the space between when two things are touching.

When I was a little kid I saw, in our sparsely decorated track home living room, my three brothers float through the wall one by one. On their backs with their eyes closed, eight feet off the ground and horizontal. They floated through one wall and continued across the room and floated out the other side to over the front lawn. I remember the sensation quite clearly as my first brother's feet came through the white flat wall without a sound, without causing a disturbance. I felt a warmth of excitement in my chest that reminds me of the sound of electricity running through wires. When I looked through the window I saw the whole neighborhood floating up, motionless on their backs, through the clouds. They were gathering in a loose mass, like gnats in the shade. They were sleeping. I understood that their bodies were in their beds. This didn't bother me. I had seen the movies and the soul looks just like yourself and it floats right up out of the body. It was almost a full moon.

When I was a little kid I had a dream that me and my brothers were full grown men and we were standing on top of a cliff overlooking L.A. The face of the cliff was the Hollywood sign and the city sparkled below. I didn't know that those letters were just thin sheet metal back then. We were on a neighborhood street, standing around the family station wagon, drinking budwieser and smoking cigarettes, exchanging stories about everything we had done. We were laughing and having a good time. It was some kind of brothers reunion. Like we hadn't seen each other for a few years. I knew my parents were dead. My eldest brother walked right over to the edge and right over the edge. I ran over to see if he could be saved, but when I looked down no one was there. When I turned around he was right there by the station wagon again and all of the conversations had started over. No one remembered a thing and they were telling the same stories and having the same conversations over. It was as if time had skipped back and only I knew about it. Then the next one fell off. And again I ran over and again I returned to see him there and 'back in time'. And then before the next brother fell off, I asked him, "is it safe?" and he laughed and said, "Try it." So I did.

Instead of falling into the cement I skipped back in time. They were saying the same stories again but they looked at me with the hint of a smile in the eyes that said, "Welcome in."

Reviews

[Cheryl J. Turner]

I have to be honest, usually when I read other peoples stories I can't get past a few lines before getting utterly bored and moving on. But this was incredible, I was instantly sucked into the story and wanted to know more, I would love to see a full story come out of this.