A bad dream
Jamal woke with his lungs burning and a taste of metal at the back of his mouth. For a breathless second he lay still and tried to remember where he was, then the remembered walls, the framed crayon drawings, the little map rug in the children’s room all slammed back into place. The dream didn’t go quietly. It stayed with him like a bad song: the window glass, the wrongness of sky directly below his feet, the soundless fall and the way his chest had hollowed as if someone had pulled a plug.
He pushed himself up on his elbows and the room tilted. The clock on the wall blinked a time that belonged to morning but had the same thin quality nightmares left behind. His heart hammered. He listened. For a moment the house was as soft as paper, quiet in the way that meant everyone el
