Some nights I dream of fire. Rooms of inner heat. This country is restless, I’m sure of it: buildings melt, the smoke goes up and makes a sunset of other people’s lungs. It’s impossible to neglect. It’s grand. Someone told me once that this apartment was designed for ventilation and if all the windows and doors were open and you stood from the right angle you could point a finger clean through the block like an exit wound. The monsoon wind’s a bullet, rising. Your hand over the building’s heart, rising. But we stifle ourselves too much, wrap ourselves in cold water and meal delivery coupons, draw the curtains to keep our thoughts in. It’s too much to bear otherwise. It’s simply too dense. At the doorway, we raised our arms to gauge the height of the frame: my fingers fit a little over, yours a little under. A little over and under it: that’s all there is. You’re laughing on the couch at some image on your phone, while I’m still sweating under the door frame. Still a little under it. Still, I fit.

Some nights, I dream of smoke. The sky between the two blocks is a column, rising. When the sun sets between the blocks there is a shape like a flare. It shimmers when the wind blows, where the air bends. Vision’s a complex thing, you know. The eye registers form while the mind affixes thought. Large things sway on the horizon and I think, with my glasses off, We aren’t meant to see things this big. Waterspouts, for instance. Skyscraper. Hurricane. Pillar of fire so high you can’t see the end of it. They’re burning wood in Indonesia. We look at each other and our minds go blank. Each of us is bigger than the other can behold. One of us is taller than the other. Yet each of us can fit under the sky of this apartment even with all the doors and windows shut and the curtains pulled down low. After sunset the smoke gets in and chokes all of us alive.