In memory, Dave’s face is not on a screen but in the sun. He’s sitting on a metal railing and I’m sitting next to him but all that I can see is his torso, from muscled shoulders to tapered waist. He’s talking and I’m trying to listen, but the voice is mostly a rumble beside the sound of water rushing. The sun is bright, like a camera adjusting to overexposure with that wash of blankness that settles back to color. Now I see his face again and he’s waiting. “Jump,” he says. “Go.” So I stand up facing forward and jump, turning in midair to watch the bridge slide away before hitting the water.

“No, I’m still going.” There is rain dripping on asphalt and a woman’s voice asking to sit down and offering to hold hands. “Did you talk to your mother? I’m coming back from a wedding. Flying can be very frightening…”

Walking into the apartment again, there’s a bright clown faced bag of popcorn on the counter waiting for me. Day-glo smile full of popped corn, but it's stale enough to stand firm to the touch. Upstairs there is a thump as though the ceiling is going to fall, so that pieces of white fluff slips between gripped fingers and drifts to the floor, immediately crushed somehow underfoot. The pieces lie on the floor like bits of plaster in a world of wood molding. The rest tumbles onto the tabletop like rolling dice. The noise upstairs comes again with a new tone, possibly the creak of settling into a large, black, spring loaded chair. In the fridge there is one large bottle of beer, corked with a colorful plastic cork. It pops like champagne with the flick of a thumb, soaring into the air and dropping out of site.

Leaning from side to side to glance along the bottoms of the counter and kick out with one pointed toe, I catch my own eye and square up again with a troubled expression. The tank top peels off with a tug, and drops into the trash in a ball of exhausted dark fabric. One arm wraps, tan, around paler skin and covers the scars of removed belly art. Picking up the phone in the other hand, it immediately chirps with a message.

If you need help, it says, you can call me.

Call the number back immediately.