the end(s)

there are many versions of this story. me under the covers in eightyfive degree weather. me with fever dreams.

one - we are standing at the edge of the river. it's too late i tell you, i don't know how to fix this. and i fall backwards, arms out, accepting that this is the fate of us. you call this love, but only because it requires nothing of you. you don't know what love is. because real love is giving all of yourself, completely. and it feels good to drown.

two - a party of some unknown celebrity that has grown quickly out of control. there is a mansion with a pool and people are being bussed in. we are sitting around a dining room table illogically placed in a mudroom. oprah is supposed to give the toast but she has wandered off to the small pool below the waterfall of the larger pool. when it's suggested that someone go retrieve her, everyone looks at the floor, the walls, avoiding eye contact like a class that doesn't know the answers. i go. she is on a raft in a yellow bathing suit and sarong. i don't know where she got the outfit, but she is oprah, so there is no point in asking such things. she agrees to come along with me back to the house and on the way we talk about settling for men. she laments settling and i tell her there's nothing for her to reach for. she says that its sad that at my low level, i am not reaching and it should be insulting, but it comes out charming.

three - we get back to the house and she gives a toast and by now there are busloads of zombies coming in. i try to hurry everyone out. oprah, the zombies don't know that you're oprah. i try to explain, but there is no reasoning with celebrities.

four - the zombies are everywhere. they are some sort of hybrid zombie/vampire - i am walking around with a cross flashlight and crossing my fingers when i see them as some sort of makeshift sign. why can't we just hole up in a church, i ask, but no one seems to be paying attention. there are two cars out front and more people than can fit in them. we pile in and the car lurches heavy on the turns as though we are traveling in sand.

five - there is a parent/child swimming race. i have no partner but am convinced i can do both legs alone. the gun has already been fired when i get there and i dive in despite my competitions' obvious headstart. i make up room, passing 3 teams around the buoy. it is the parents leg and they say hello to me in a confused fashion. i get back to the shore and dive back in for the next leg, but i am slowing down. it is becoming hard to breathe and i feel myself growing faint. then my head pops up into this metal box. i can't see anything but can hear there is something terrible behind me. i can breathe, but know that is dangerous i can breathe. these pockets are part of some sort of metal caterpillar and there is certain doom waiting at the tail. i struggle to move my way up, popping from one air pocket to the next and feeling like i've failed. when i reach the head i see that there is a wave attached to this thing, the kind of wave you don't come back from. my cousins are on shore and they are celebrating something that has nothing to do with my survival. when i finally reach the shore, exhausted and panting, my father suggests we go for hot dogs.