Doppler

Maybe I’m still in bed. Inside a dull dream. A man sits before a page. Holds a pen. Has an idea that death is a physical thing. A child growing inside him, dull and lazy. The death inside his wife is something metastasizing, a word he fails to understand, barely knows how to spell. In his father death was a sudden short of the circuitry. An electrical explosion. He tries not to imagine the deaths inside his children, but a maggot wriggles. If this is a dream, I want to wake but it won’t let me sleep. I close my eyes but cannot lie still. There is a chill. And a smell of something burning. Outside, strange flying things buzz and call. Lights flash. A siren blares, it’s tone deepening as it moves away. I recall the name for it: the Doppler effect. A sure way to know if something is coming for me or moving away. I listen hard. The man with the pen is unsure which way things are moving. Death doesn’t make even the slightest sound. Not anything either of us can hear anyway.