In my dream, the city is on fire. We hold hands and walk through the rubble. You're wearing the white dress with the red print you wore at your brother's wedding, so long ago, and I am in a suit and tie. We are both covered in ash; ash is on our lips and in our hair. Instinctively, I reach forward and brush the ash away from your mouth, kiss you. You smile and shake your head, pull away. Not now, your eyes say. Not now.

The fires here have burned themselves out. Here and there, in the shadowy remnants of buildings, there is the faint glow of embers, of smoldering wood, but all that remains is ash and brick and steel, twisted into odd shapes, and jagged fragments of glass, reflecting the smoky light, half-buried in ash or stuck as teeth in windows that gape obscenely, open-mouth-wide.

It's surprising how little is really left, you say, staring at what must have been a house. There are the charred skeleton of a table and chairs, buckled metal legs all that remains. You release my hand and step over the bricks that once marked a wall, kick through the ash, revealing broken fragments of china, burnt scraps of cloth. They must have been in the middle of dinner, you say, skipping back over the wall. There's still plates on the table, cracked from the heat.

I clutch at your hand again, smile at you, and we keep walking, through the city that is no longer a city. There are no bodies, and you take note of that.

Everyone must have escaped, you say. I don't see anybody.

I nod. I cannot speak in my dreams; I am limited to small actions. Smiles, slight tilts of the head to indicate yes and no. You understand, interpret them for what they are, and imperfect though it is, we understand one another.

No bodies, you repeat.

I nod again. I should be happy at this, maybe, but I cannot believe that everyone escaped. Maybe the crews came for them, early, and this section has been cleared. There are still crews left, aren't there? Someone must do the cleaning; some agency is responsible for loading the bodies into carefully labeled bags and hauling them away.

We kick at ash as we walk down the broken sidewalk, watch it rise, swirl and eddy.

Someone is calling me from far away. My name is only murmured at first, so low as to be easily mistaken for something else, and then louder, rising in pitch as it does in volume.

---

I wake with ash in my mouth, your hands on my shoulders. Henry, Henry, you say, your voice raw with smoke. We've got to move.

I struggle to my feet, spit grey sputum onto the sidewalk, and reach for your hand.