I open my mouth to speak and only words come out. No real sound, just empty words. So I clamp my lips shut again and vow not to bother opening it a second time.

I watch the lonely, empty people hack their way through this lonely, empty jungle and vow to not bother struggling so futily a second time.

I hear that familiar voice that rips me from my present reality and drags me violently back into the past... and the words fail me... and the struggle fails me... and the tears betray me. And I vow this time not to bother returning from the perfect memories to the starkness of my reality a second time.

They come and they go. Like faces in the clouds they appear and just as subtly disappear. I have learned the senselessness of attempting to memorize even one small curve of their lip or the line of their brow... for they go.

Water drips into the sink near me so loudly that I cannot hear my own thoughts. The rain falls angrily against the windows, screaming out their flight and fatal landing upon the glass. There is a floor beneath me, and walls around me... but on the inside it is so bleak and empty that I feel suspended there in that darkness, not here surrounded by material objects.

The dreams return. The girl lying limbless outside my front door, convulsing and smiling maniacally. The man in his suit propped calmly in the leather seat of his gold luxury car... seemingly oblivious that the skin of his face has been ripped away and one of his eyes rested against the bleeding red muscles of his cheek. The body of that little boy walking towards me, head tucked under his arms.

The bullet ripping through glass and flesh and the sound of it shattering bone. The blood and gray matter splattering immediately over leather seats and one stunned girl in the passenger seat.

The car door opening so forcefully it groaned on its hinges. The bullets whizzing by and tickling my ears. The dead weight sliding from behind the wheel and into my arms. The blood and brains smearing on the leather of the back seat beneath my hands. My own voice screaming and sounding very much like a stranger's in my ears. The hard pavement beneath my back, digging into my skull, the knees on my wrists and legs pinning me down. The rain beating on my face angrily, screaming out its flight and fatal rendezvous with my own tears.

His eyes only a few feet away where he lay... staring into mine. In the distance a woman screamed. And I lay there, silent now, and staring peacefully into those eyes. A small smile playing across my lips. Oh he spoke to me yes. He spoke to me as he left.

And the dreams return.