Dream Sequence

“Amagaeru is ready. Are you?” The oversized green frog sat in Tomo’s cupped hands, breathing rhythmically to the sound of the crashing waves. In the distance, dark clouds rolled and the churning sea roared.

I walked my dog along the lonely single-lane road. We came across an intersection where the gravel road met an asphalt road. A rusty gray mailbox sat at the corner, with a small, rusty gray ranch house about twenty yards behind it. Up the paved road was a newer apartment complex, rising about five or six floors up from a hill behind the old house.

I’ve been taking care of aquarium fish since I was seven. Until a fateful day last year, I had two albino cories, a tetra, and a few zebra danios in a small tank at the corner of my bedroom. Now, an empty fish tank sits in its place.