You must be quiet

We have lunch in an abandoned restaurant. 

Tables of black wood with matching chairs, we eat mushrooms with berries and drink pond water. We use napkins and a tablecloth of moss. 

When we finish, a bird screeches, and I’m alone. The moon glows, hanging from our ceiling, surrounded by stars: a celestial chandelier.

I walk off. The restaurant transforms into a hallway leading me to the office my father had in my childhood home before we lost it to the flood. Hollow windows, curtains of pondweed, the back wall missing, breaking into a lush tunnel of grass, oak tree’s roots keep the cracks together, nature’s plasters, from falling apart. 

I walk among thousands. We say nothing, we never stop. I cannot touch them but they can touch me, and I must make sure it never happens.

I walk until the tunnel ends and there’s a staircase leading me down. Tree branches are tied around my forearm, but this time you are next to me. We don’t look at each other, but I know you are there.

My fears breathe down my neck. Raven hair, blinded by tree sap, from when this place was built. It destroyed nature, She cried onto your eyes as She took this city back. It hurt, but She had to.

We walk downstairs. Too slow and he’ll touch you, you can’t let him. Too quick and he’ll hear you. 

You must be quiet.