a slight sylph with sparkling eyes named meiko did it. did it. did it. blotting blood with a napkin, she said, with a cute look of acute concern, 'umm... for three weeks, you must not... umm...'

'go swimming?' I suggested. she nodded emphatically. 'or showering,' I said to myself.

'no!' she shrieked. 'prease shower!' I laughed. I'll shower for you, meiko.

I am home from japan and the shadow of a long flight has darkened my senses. I walk into my old house, house of olde, where parents and pets and people reside, six little people, my six siblings. I walk through my mother's decorated halls. my father commited suicide when I was 19. he nearly sliced his hand off. and there he stands, in the doorway, smiling slightly. he embraces me and kisses my cheek.

'I love you,' I say compulsively, and I think that perhaps this is a dream, luminous and lovely, a bright bubble that has entered my mind. 'I love you too,' he says. scarce words. 'and I hope someday you know just how much.'

this is fine and dandy and I enter his office, where precise stacks of folders and papers once stood. now, chaos. words scrawled on the walls with markers. papers all over the floors. I look, mouth agape.

'where have you been all of this time?' I ask, still in shock. he shrugs his shoulders.

'do you know the educational programming they show in schools now? I was working on that...' he says vaguely. but as time progresses, I see that he has become insane. 'not much occupies my time now. these days...' he says, aphotic, desperate. this black, blank darkness of disconsolation hurts my heart. my father used to own three companies. my father used to take me with him all over the world. is this a dream?

'but I know you are not well, either,' he says to me. 'I have read your blog.'

'my blog?' I say in shock. 'how did you know about my blog?'

'it was written in a notebook I found...' he says vaguely. 'but, if you like, you can read my blog, too... it's .'

'what? write it down for me.'

he holds up a piece of paper with incoherent scribbles on it, and I see it, and my heart breaks in half.

'what does it say?' I ask. he glares at me.

'it's so obvious!' he snaps, and turns away. I wander away. outside, where hundreds of dogs and cats run rampant. 'I have to do something about all of these animals,' I say to myself. I see my old cat, nosferatu, and I beckon to her, but she runs into a prickled bush and I am distracted by the sight of my three sisters running around in the yard.

'dad's back!' I exclaim, to alexis (ali), 9, and she gives me a callow glare.

'he's been back,' she says. 'but where have you been?'

'japan,' I say, but she has already run off, and I realize that none of my sisters are wearing shoes. or socks. they look pale. underfed. worry gnaws at my heart.

my family is in an auditorium, and my old piano teacher, mr. hierholzer, is there, sitting next to my father, and on the wooden stage a boy sits at a black paino and plays a painstaking rendition of bach's ave maria. I eye my sister, samantha, 16, sitting a few rows back, and I join her. I squeeze her arm lovingly.

'I missed you,' I whisper. 'are you glad dad is back?'

she smiles sadly at me. 'he is dead inside,' she says. and then I see him, my father (once strong, once stalwart, once sure), wandering in the aisles, singing absent-mindedly, childishly swinging his arms.

'shit,' I say, as all awkward eyes fix themselves on his spectacle, and I move to bring him down when I see my brother, christopher, 20, having a seizure in the aisle. panic. my eyes flicker between the two faltering males and I leap to help my brother and vomit, brown and bilious, is erupting from his rosy mouth. panic.

'it will be okay it will be okay oh god let it be okay please don't die,' I say as I clear the vomit from his mouth with my pallid middle finger and hoist him onto my shoulder, dragging him to the bathroom. his head rolls dangerously. I look back and I see my father, pointing, shouting. at an audience captivated by his confusion. I weep. I disintegrate. I decompose. I drag my brother to the women's bathroom and I prop him up next to the toilet and I murmur soothing sayings and I run back to the auditorium to grab my father. drag him out the door. how could this happen.

we are all home again, my old home, germanic and sprawled. this home does not exist anymore. it was knocked down and paved over in 2004, and I have not seen its absence, I have not brought myself to visit. in 2003 I saw it, before it was knocked down, after my father had killed himself, and I walked into my father's walk-in closet. my father's closet had always been locked. my mother's had always been opened, and I had slipped my small feet into her grand heels, her teetering boots. my shoulders slid into her fur jackets. but my father's closet was an unexplored mystery. and I walked into it and he was dead and it was empty, no starched shirts hanging, and I screamed and cried. I kicked the walls. that was so long ago.

in this strange dream, a piercing terror brimmed into me as I realized that neither of my parents were capable. my mother was sobbing on a heap on the floor, my mother, once I was splashing and spelunking in my mother's mossy womb. my siblings ran rampant, the heated swimming pool, in its atrium (once so clear, like flashing glass) now mossy and messy. this domestic miscarriage. my siblings ran rampant. my friend scottie jack and his wife, stacy, suddenly appeared, and I felt obligated to make small talk. but soon I broke down. 'you won't believe what has happened,' I tried to say. 'my father is alive. again.' and stacy snickered a disparaging remark about my stumbling, senseless father. immediately my hand plunged itself into the roan spirals of her hair. I yanked her out the door. 'if you ever say anything about my father again, I will fucking kill you,' I hissed, I almost collapsed, outside, in sorrow.

I woke from the dream and... and. my father still dead, in his minimal grave. once christopher phoned me. 'there are letters that they wrote,' he said. they meaning our five young siblings, distraught, dismayed.

'should I take them? or leave them?' he asked.

I am in tokyo. I opened the curtains and I can see tokyo tower from my window, and the settling birds with their flashing flapping of wings, and my new tattoo settling onto my shoulder. I will be back in austin on april 2nd. where are you, mom? where are you, dad?

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