~ 28 ~
ShearsCassie wakes to a room humming with quiet. Her dream washes over her like muddy water. A dream without substance. Without words. A dream that leaves only its texture—a hollow airless bubble. She tries to shake it from her mind but as she turns her head the bubble follows her, slow and precarious, her head full of air, floating separate from her body. A cue to delve into her mind, into the dream, to examine, to search, to upend answers. She refuses. She looks instead to the pile of old uniforms on the floor and the new uniforms hanging on the cupboard door ready for name tags to be sewn onto their collars. Cassandra Shultz. Ordinary, plain old black-haired, bony elbowed Cassie Shultz.
She pulls back the sheets and meets a swarm of the dream, flying around her like moths, thic
