The pills Dolly worked into Alex’s mouth with her caviar-flavored nails make the sheets rise around him. The room fills with water. If he presses himself to think he can see her standing at the foot of the bed, shimmering like a mirage, a dolphin moving underneath the waves. To stare at her face is to stare directly into a light bulb. Her red curls are a stain on the wall. The will to open his eyes struggles against the slowly dissolving sedatives in his bloodstream, and cracks of light wedge under the hoods of his eyelids. He can feel metal against his thighs, cold and resigned. The air leaves him as shadows set.

            Then his body moves with the waves. He is one with the current and bobs up only to fall, shiftin...

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