In the dream Lise, Doqz, and I are somewhere that is Toronto but is not like Toronto at all. We walk across an open piazza type area and when we get to the far side I look to my left, in the distance, and see a large wooden statue leaned against a hillside, or maybe built into the hillside. There's a plaque carved into it and I squint and say,

"Does that say Isaiah?"

Lise says, "yeah, that's that statue of Isaiah."

I run across the square and up the hill to the top of the statue, where a cluster of tourists is gathered. Doqz is explaining something about Isaiah to Lise behind me but I can't really hear. There's another plaque on the side of the statue, smaller, that says . . something that I can't remember. damn. Something about god, something like "whoever sees--" I don't know. Something about fire.

The hill is covered with grass and it overlooks the whole city (which doesn't look anything like Toronto). There are other smaller wooden statues sticking out of the ground all over the hill and surrounding hills that lead away from the city.

Someone in the crowd is singing. Then there's laughing and a little girl jumps out of the side of Isaiah's head-- the statue is hollow-- holding a wooden thing that's like, I don't know, waterworn and kind of spherical but tapered at the bottom with some kind of contraption on top. The girl passes it to someone in the crowd who passes it to someone else, playing with it, but then it drops on the ground with a clunk.

"That's the beating heart," says Doqz, irritated. "Put it back."

*

Then Christina came into the room where I was sleeping and said, "I can't believe she's still sleeping," then went away; and I dreamed that I got out of bed and went into mom's bathroom and looked into the mirror. My hair was pulled back with a long string of Mardi Gras beads that were all dark blue stars, wrapped around my head. There were two smudged grey streaks going down my cheeks like I'd been crying in my sleep, though I hadn't.