Antonia Piedmonte-Lang
June 29, 2026
He came to me.
I remember how rough his hands were, and how sullen he looked. The grey day went on behind and within him. Together, we got in his car.
It seems I had summoned him. I’m not sure how this is possible. I think merely by looking for something, or someone– I remember that feeling, like being at a bus stop. Then he was there. His car was a small turquoise thing– not new, the hood was rusted. We were off. I was in the passenger seat. Around us, flat bodies of water. Also, it was wooded, but flat, as if I could take in the green forests all at once, in one gigantic leap of sight on either side of me, as if in some kind of minor flight over the land by means of the car and him. I commented on the trees, how beautiful they were likely to look in the fall, in a couple months time. It wasn’t summer exactly, or perhaps it was. Yes, in fact, it was summer. I just didn’t know this immediately. I seem to think he was in layers. (Later on, he was in layers).
We drove through the landscape until he leapt out of the car. He leapt out of it and I didn’t see where he went. For, you see, we parked on a kind of narrow train track, rickety and silver, or at least what was left of it— a remnant. I think now it must’ve been a sort of dusty ditch, red clay dust (looking back). And then there were three houses, as I lifted my head up, wondering which was his.
I stuck my head near the one on the left, running towards it even, and curiously each of the houses I noticed through my periphery had a large back window that was square and completely clear— one pane of glass. As I approached the house on the left, there was a crowd of people within it, looking out at me, almost laughing. They seemed to want me to come inside but I didn’t see him and so I left that window alone.
Then I went to the house on the far right, ignoring the house in the middle which seemed set back, perhaps even empty. The house on the right was full of black material and silver tubes– the kind that basements often have, that sort of empty tubing. The black material is thick and doesn’t let anything inside of it– opaque, sure, but also light– like charcoal. Inside of the house is a man who is bald and he looks like an alien and he’s sitting on his bed, and at the moment I look inside the house, he looks at me and is like wait wait– where are you going. And I back up onto the grass and dirt.
At last I try the middle house. This one is a pistachio color. And there I walk up to it, and he is sitting in the bed. The huge window of each house is almost a cut out square in the wood– sort of creepy and reminiscent of the plank. He has the same posture as the alien guy, and he greets me as if he’s been waiting for me, sitting on the bed like that; we greet each other. He looks either tired or sad. It seems as though he’s wearing a grey shirt underneath a hoodie. We sit down and I’m not going to mention film yet or for a while, although I want to. Then he sleeps, my presence seems to encourage sleep in him. He asks if I mind if he takes off a layer of clothing, presumably he is hot (he might even have mentioned his sweat). I don’t mind. He keeps doing this, falling asleep, and then taking off a layer of clothing, until he is completely naked under the sheets. Finally he gets up to rearrange the comforter– it is one of those bigger beds with a huge white comforter– and we’re in bed together like that, probably holding each other.
The layers and layers of clothing. The density of sleep. It seems as if the density of the sleep is important to this, although I don’t know why but I sleep intermittently.
Eventually we will speak, but not for now.