Fiction
by Robert Pope
by Robert PopeThe nightmare begins with a passing attraction for a young woman I met at church. I say young woman though she had not yet graduated from high school. At the time, I hesitated to ask her age, but did so at last in the basement of the church, in the so-called social hall, a donut held between her thumb and forefinger. She told me eighteen, and the flush that blossomed on her cheeks and around her blue-green eyes made the pulse beat harder at my temples and the side of my neck. When I remember this now, it seems like a dream I am having, but when I wake from the dream, I am held responsible for what happened in the dream.
In the dream I ran into her at a grocery store, here and there as chance would have it, though not at school, as she might have met
