The Guardians

His hands cup her breasts as he enters her. With a jolt, her own hands flail against the window. Fingernail screeches.

They're real.

But they're not. This is a dream. And no matter how convincing, there remains a thread that tethers their performance to the imagination. It's this understanding that alows them to continue without my trying to get in the way, or desperately swimming up toward consciousness. It is a dream, and therefore harmless.

Yet the dark figure who works away at the long-haired woman seems more than capable of harm. Harm is al there is to him. It looks like sex, this thing he's doing, but it's not. There is no explicit violence, no shouted threats —it may wel be mutualy voluntary what the two of them do. But for him, it has nothing to do with wanting her, or even with the pleasure of her body. He wishes only to disgrace.

I'm expecting the male figure to reveal himself to me first, but instead it's the woman. Lifting her chin and throwing her hair aside.

Not Tina Uxbridge's face, or Heather Langham's. It's Tracey Flanagan's.

Her eyes emptied of the humour they conveyed in life. But otherwise unquestionably her. Mouth open in a soundless moan. Her breasts capped by nipples turned purple in the way of freezer-burned meat.

For some reason I assume it is the coach standing behind her. It is more than an assumption—the anticipation of him showing himself to me, the ta-dah! moment that is the waking trigger to every nightmare, is so certain I am already recaling his face from memory, so that when he appears, I won't be wholy surprised. It will be the coach. Released from the celar to carry out this perversity, this pairing of the apparently living with the probably dead.

But I am wrong in this too.

I am already scrabbling out from under the branches when the boy leans to the side to reveal his face over Tracey Flanagan's shoulder. Enflamed, gloating. He is more interested in me than whatever mark he means to leave on Tracey.

Hey there, old man. It's been a while.

The boy's lips don't move, but I can hear him nonetheless.

You want a piece of this? Come inside.

It's his voice that prompts me to move. To get up and run away. But I'm not sixteen, as I thought I was. This isn't the past but the present, and I am a man with a degenerative disease, fighting to get to my feet. Three times I try, and each time I am stricken with a seizure that brings me down. Al I manage to do is rol closer to the window, so that Tracey and the boy loom over me.

Look at you, the boy says as I claw at the house's brick, his voice free of sympathy, of any feeling at al . You're falling apart, brother. Ever think of just cashing out? Keep little Ben company?

My hand manages to grip a dead vine that has webbed itself up the wal. It alows me to get to my knees. Then, with a lunge, to my feet. Instead of waiting to see if I can maintain my balance, I try to run to the street, but the motion only crumples me onto the ground once more. Eyes fixed on the boy's.

Poor Trev. I'm not sure you could manage this if I pulled your fly down for you and pointed you in the right direction.

The boy laughs. Then he thrusts against Tracey a final time before holding himself inside her, his knuckles gripped white to her hips, his shoulders shuddering with the spite of his release.

I was right about breakfast.

By the time I make it downstairs, Mrs. McAuliffe is in the kitchen, bathrobed and slippered, eggy bread in the pan and a bowl of fruit on the table. At the sound of me entering (my fingernails dig into the doorframe for balance), the old woman lights up.

'Sleep wel?' she asks, returning her attention to the stove to flip the slices.

'It's a good mattress.'

'Posturepedic. Ben had a bad back.'

'I didn't know.'

'It was al the sitting.'

'That'l do it.'

'I'm glad to see it's given somebody a good night's rest.'

As I stagger to the kitchen table I wonder how I could possibly be mistaken for someone who's had a good night's rest. And then it comes to me that this is only Betty McAuliffe's wish: that I be comfortable and enjoy her cooking, that I use the things her son wil never use again, that I stay a little longer. She sees me as wel rested and affliction-free because her life with Ben had trained her in the art of seeing the sunny side, of pushing on as though their lives were as sane as their neighbours'. We have this in common, Betty and I. We've both had to work at our normal acts.

I'm bending my chin close to the bowl to deliver a wavering spoon of mango to my mouth when there's a knock at the door. As Betty goes to answer, I'm sure it's the police. They've finaly come for me. The charges may be related to the present or the past. They've come, and I am ready to go.

But it's not the police. It's Randy, now taking the seat across from mine and accepting Mrs. McAuliffe's offer of a coffee and shortbread.

'You look terrible,' he says once Betty has excused herself to get dressed.

'Should have caled before dropping by. I would have made a point of putting my face on.'

'Don't bother. I can see your inner beauty.'