Solon under the strawberries dreams he is alive and that he is dreaming. His dream is a powerful thing, heavy and pendulous with life.

Solon dreams that he has killed a woman, unseen and unmarked.

Solon dreams that he wakes with her blood yet on his hands, her body cool and stiff beside him. He cannot see her face — she faces away from him and in his dream he cannot bear to turn her over. He showers, swamping the bath with soap and blood and hair, showers until he is bald, showers until the water rises, opaque, to his knees. The water rushes down the drain; when Solon returns to the bed the body is gone.

Solon dreams that he wakes and he is sitting in a car on the edge of a cliff. The woman is sitting next to him. She is looking out the window. He looks at her neck, at her hair, at the ocean through her window. He starts to say something but releases the parking brake instead. He dreams that the car rolls forwards over the cliff and tumbles down to meet the unyielding water. While they are falling the woman gasps and turns to look at him. Her hair is in front of her face. She reaches to brush it away, and they crash into the salt sea, the bitter sea.

Solon dreams that he wakes on a plane, his forehead sore from leaning against the window. He is flying home for a funeral, for his mother’s funeral. He looks through the window at the clouds. There he thinks he sees a face. It is a woman’s face. He does not recognize the face, dreams that he turns to the woman beside him, draws her attention to the cloud face. She leans politely over him and he sees her face in profile. Her mouth is open. It is filled with crumbling black earth.