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Death perches on a low branch of a laburnum tree, munching on an ice cream cone and swinging her boots two inches above the highest strands of her brother's hair. She takes care not to drip on his head, though she seems to enjoy catching droplets on her tongue at the last minute. Dream sits with his back to the tree and his gaze faraway, wrapped in a cloak of dignity and black linen.
"Have a bite?" she offers. "I haven't licked all the way around."
No, thank you. Dream's voice is the velvet touch of moleskin, the mellow bite of aged whisky, the scent of black leather, the prismatic blue of an ice cavern.
"You don't even know what flavor it is."
It's pink, he says, without looking up.
"Pink ice cream can be strawberry, or bubble-gum, or plum, or red bean, or watermelon, or cherry blossom, or pink lemonade, or raspberry, or rose. If you get it from Delirium, it can be sitcom-flavored. Or Corvette."
Dream's silence is eloquent with the desire to be left alone to brood.
"... It's peppermint stick." She licks all the way around this time. "With bits of candy. They're chewy. You don't know what you're missing."
I know what will be missed.
"That's no reason to miss it right now." Death smacks a bough. A flurry of yellow blossoms tumble into her brother's hair, where they catch and glow like young suns in an ancient sky.
Dream is a tall angular man with skin that seems to have only known moonlight, and eyes that open to the infinite depths and flickering stars of deep space. He is dressed too warmly for the weather, with his tight black shirt and narrow black pants and billowing black trench coat, but he doesn't sweat or seem to notice. His bones make geometry a thing of beauty.
Death is a young woman in a black tank top and leggings. A silver ankh pendant swings between her breasts. She too is pale and dark-haired, but it's not the same kind of pale. You get the feeling that she loves the sun, even if only from beneath a top hat or parasol. She's small but sturdy, not brittle like her brother. You want to climb trees with her, take her to a club and dance all night, have her over for a slumber party. You could watch movies and dip caramel apples and do each others' nails with a different color for each one, toes included. She'd like that, you think.
Dream and Death are also a black panther and a snow leopard. And a pale elegant man with pointed ears, a Japanese schoolgirl in velvet and lace, an African warrior with a carved staff, a professor, a matador, a punk rocker, a knight, a girl in a sparkling quincenera gown, a soldier in dress blacks, a dripping thing with too many legs, a ghost-white birch tree and a gnarled black pine, a moth, a swan, a raven, a rat, a pair of spinning flashing stars.
They are ideas, words on a page, visions in an ancient cave. They are not even male and female, except perhaps in the grammatical sense: la serpiente (f); el gato (m).
But you have to see them as something, so you see them as this: a pretty girl with a silver necklace, and a beautiful man with stars in his eyes.
Death hops off the branch. She lands lightly beside her brother in a swirl of yellow petals.
"Come on," she says. "It's time."
Everything in the park is blooming: the laburnums, the dogwoods, the field of wildflowers to the west and the formal rose garden to the east. The ground is carpeted with petals, and the picnickers are out in force: parents trying to maintain a safe distance between friendly children with food and fearless squirrels with sharp teeth, new couples cautiously flirting, old couples in each others' laps, friends laughing and drinking, solo picnickers engrossed in books. The crisp spring air is heavy with roses and jasmine, sharp with beer and kimchi, savory with oyster po'boys and barbecued ribs, sweet with fresh-baked peach pie and freshly bitten peaches.
Dream and Death don't approach anyone as they make their way through the park. But it's a crowded place, and Death doesn't mind chatting if someone speaks to her first, and people like to give her things. By the time they cross the creek (Dream over the arched bridge, Death over the skipping stones) she has acquired a packet of pralines in newspaper, a cats' eye marble, a gift certificate for six free violin lessons, and a balloon shaped like a dripping thing with too many legs.
Outside the park, the streets of the city are loud and boisterous. Jets of steam puff up from grates as subway trains rumble past. Bicyclists and skateboarders weave through the crowds at manic speed. The sidewalks are an enormous open-air market, and people in the city like to bargain, with large gestures and great shows of emotion. Dream looks a little harried. Death crunches the last bite of her cone and licks her fingers. She tries to buy a section of honeycomb, but the woman at the honey stall tells her that the first hit is always free.
Death offers the comb to her brother. Honey oozes up around her fingers and begins to trace a slow golden path down the side of her hand. You think that surely the Bible was mistranslated, and the fruit of temptation was actually a honeycomb, warmed in patches by the heat of those slender fingers.
Dream shakes his head.
"Just try it." Death waves it under his nose. "Wildflower honey, there's nothing like it."
I am not fond of sweets.
"Give me a break," snaps Death. "You wouldn't go on the ride at the train museum, you wouldn't stay for the encore at the concert, you wouldn't climb the tree or taste the ice cream, and now you're not fond of sweets. If you had the world's best wine, you'd mourn all the way down to the dregs, because once you finished there wouldn't be any more. It's pure adolescent angst- and it's been going on for millennia. I'm sick of it!"
She flings out her hands in annoyance, and drops of honey spatter against the exquisitely world-weary planes of her brother's face.
"Oops," says Death.
The stars in Dream's eyes twinkle in a cosmic blink. After a moment, he licks away the honey. (Some of it had been far out of the range of his tongue, but when you blink a normal human blink, it's all gone.)
It's very fine honey, he concedes.
"And a very fine day." They lean against a sun-warmed brick wall, which you are certain had not been there a moment ago, and pass the honeycomb back and forth.
When it's finished, Dream turns his head. To your shock, he looks straight at you.
Come here, dreamer.
You're a little frightened. Up till now, you were merely watching the scene unfold. You hadn't realized that you were a part of it.
You don't remember, but you have been here before, he tells you. But you will not come back again.
"Why not?"
I created this city, a very long time ago. Now I have come to uncreate it.
You stare at him, then at his sister: his sister, Death.
"But it's so alive. So beautiful," you protest.
Death smiles. "It loves to be loved. Listen."
The voice you hear is a million conversations, the thrum of the subway, the sizzle of tempura batter in hot oil, the cawing of crows on a wire, the splash of children's feet into puddles, the rustle of falling leaves, the tapping of fingers on keyboards, the slap of comfortable shoes on a dance floor, the bells of a paleta cart, the whoosh of a ball through a net, the snap of the ribbon at a marathon finish line, and the mellow rhythm of a busker's guitar. It is the voice of the city. The city loves you.
"Why?" you ask. "Why does it have to die?"
Death answers, gentle and pitiless. "Nothing lives forever. Not even us."
I must send you home, says Dream. But as the last dreamer of the city, you may take some small souvenir: a jacket, perhaps, or a silver bracelet. Or a honeycomb.
"I just want to remember it this time," you say. "That's all."
That is not possible, he replies. If you could remember the city, you would have before. All I can do is make you almost remember... and that will haunt you.
You're not sure what he means, and you look to Death for help.
"You looked like you wanted a bite of that honeycomb," she says. "Would you still have enjoyed it if you'd known it was the last one? Or if you'd known it might be, but you couldn't ever be sure?"
Maybe yesterday you would have answered differently, but this is your truth today: "I would have enjoyed it even more."
Death gives you a sisterly smile, as if you shared a secret. "Then take what my brother has to give."
Dream stretches out his hand.
You wake up with tears in your eyes, and the taste of honey in your mouth.
You turn your face into the pillow, hoping to fall back into the dream, but it slips away like smoke. You can't remember a single detail, except that it was beautiful and sad, and that you would give anything to experience it again.
Loss and love press so closely together that you cannot tell if what you're feeling is pain or joy. But you know that somehow, you chose this. And though you don't know what it means, you know that a city loved you.
You grab a notebook and a pen from the table beside your bed, and begin to write. What you write is up to you.
It's your story.