She’s dreaming of nights and days and the sounds of a stream. In her dream she feels the breath of willows on her cheeks and inside her bones. She feels ponderosa pine roots pulsing beneath the ground, and she feels the ground itself breathing its way into her. She no longer cares or even notices how long these breaths last. She merely takes each one in and lets it back out. She feels herself settling deeper into the spot where she lies, like a cat on a lap, like a river in a canyon, like being in bed after a hard day of playing when she was young. Nika is dreaming, and sometimes she sees other people, people she doesn’t recognize. They walk like ghosts, and sometimes notice her. Most often they don’t. Nika is dreaming, and sometimes her dreams are filled with yearning, yearning for her mother and father, and yearning also for other things she has never known, yearning for things she cannot yet name, and does not know if she ever will. Nika is dreaming, and she’s filled with yearning.
