There is a river in the sky.
A real one. Full of fish. Full of teeth.
I swam.
No. I struggled. Because every movement in the sky was a prayer, and every prayer sank like lead.
Clouds smiled at me with the crooked teeth of old grandmothers.
I saw birds. I saw things that were not birds.
Things with too many wings.
Things with none.
Below me, or maybe above (direction had lost meaning), there was a great floor of green light, bending under weightless trees.
And everywhere, creatures.
Not fish exactly, though they swam.
Not beasts exactly, though they hunted.
Their eyes were pieces of dreams people had abandoned.
One brushed past me and my skin flinched. I felt myself begin to forget.
Forget my name.
Forget my hands.
Forget that Leonard Donton had ever been anything more than meat pretending at soul.
I fought to remember. I fought like a drunk at last call, fists full of nothing but my own hair.
Somewhere far away, maybe in the very bones of my teeth, I heard a sound.
A low sound.
Like coins falling.
Or maybe chewing.