We found a pink mountain. The mineral glittered in her hand. "What is it?" she asked. "Bauxite," I replied. Certain spots were soft, unstable, sucking like quicksand. We hiked until we reached a waterfall. We walked over water, stepping on stone islands. Statues surrounded us. One was half-fish and half-man: a man's head on a neck of gills. The legs were fins but the arms human. Fishman. She leaned against a statue of Jesus and cooled in the breeze from the falling water. "Careful," I warned. She smiled and said, "Paranoid." Something moved and I turned. Fishman wiggled. "He's alive!" I said. He wiggled free of his pedestal and swam through the air to reach her. She bent down to stroke. Fishman wagged his tail. She straddled his back. "No!" I called. She grabbed his dorsal fin and Fishman dove down into the bauxite. She was gone. The waterfall stopped and the statues melted. The mountain flattened into a desert. The sky went violet. I found a mirror on a rock and brushed off the bauxite. I looked in—she was lying naked on our bed, holding a stack of snapshots. Fishman swam over and opened his mouth. His gills flared as he swallowed our lives, one memory at a time.

This was actually a dream sequence!