I did not know what my father saw in me as he looked at me in this manner. I was ten years old in a memory and sixteen years old underneath the memory, and I had died horribly, and I had seen a vision of the world ending, and I was asking my father, my ordinary father, who tanned leather for advice on the largest question I had ever asked anyone in my life.
It seemed ridiculous, but this was the man who had given me wisdom for years, and I felt that in a world of madness, perhaps true wisdom could be found in the ordinary.
I did not know if the dream version of my father could give me a real answer or if the words would slide off the surface of the dream the way the water in the dream river had slid into blood.
All I knew was that I was desperate to try. What else did I have to lose?
He was quiet for long enough that I thought he was not going to answer, then he said,
"Sit down."
