DEAR Aunt Ness,

Things are good back home? I know I’ve never asked, but Mom says you are the best at reading dreams. She says it’s because you were born with a veil, that sight is your gift. I’m not sure that’s true, maybe it’s your intuitiveness or ability to interpret the things the rest of us see in the dark, I don’t know. I’d like for you to try anyway. To tell me what it means, this dream that won’t leave, this one that even comes when I’m awake.

In the dream, there is a bird. John Crow. His wings are wide like the skyline and sharp like the edges of broken glass. His body is stained in coal, not the color, actual coal. I never see him do it, but can feel him rolling around in a pit of soot and talc before he takes flight. Everything ripples when he soars. The buildings and people shake like pop rocks or lit kindling. He glares down with his pinkish, reddish face, and eyes the city like a hunting ground. And the wind, the wind is behind him helping him along. Then I see the boats, purple and green and red and yellow sails, carrying the people off far away. Slowly, but holding them nonetheless. Suddenly, and without warning, the wind shifts. It starts howling and changes its direction. It blows the boats back to shore and faces the bird head on. The wind’s howl becomes a scream and John Crow caws back so loud his echoes crack the pavement and shatter the clouds. He can’t move though. The wind is too strong, so he flies in place, battling to get to the other side no one can see. Then I wake up, everytime. I wake up before I know if John Crow turns around or if the wind loses its steam. I wake up to a flystill.

I think it’s about this job, aunty. The one I hate. Not the tenants, the people I work for. But it came with reduced rent and I can’t afford to live here any other way. Remember when I wanted to be a dancer? When my soles were light and I learned to plie. Mom sent you that picture of me in my tutu, didn’t she? I felt as though I could grande jete over the CN Tower, legs as light as feathers and strong as leather. Mom was so upset though, she looked everywhere for brown ballet slippers and couldn’t find any. She wanted me to have the perfect leg line, but that only worked with the right color shoe. She figured ballet wasn’t right for me then, maybe not. I do still dream of pirouettes and bourrees when the damn bird dream doesn’t come instead.

From dancer to property manager, can you imagine? It doesn’t even sound like me. Besides, if I have to mix up in this bureaucratic nonsense and have a job where the abbreviation is PM, it should at least be prime minister. Maybe then I could do something, really change something, instead of feeling stuck all the time. I fight for us, do what I can with the little they give. I push for quicker maintenance even though they push to slow it down. I push for renovations even though they push for rent hikes. I push for something to be done about the rodents even though they push for a cupcake shop on the corner.

I wear the red lip though. Polished and neat like you and Mom say. I wear it with my blazer and tightly coiffed hair, and carry it like armour into their building when I leave this one. I smile, seal my coconut cakes tight, and take note. There is more than one way to fight the fight, no?  I know who I stand for, I just wish it didn’t look like I stood somewhere else.

I said I think, but I know the dream is about work. About John Crow’s wickedness preying over the city, this building, and these people. I just need you to tell me if I’m him in my nightmares. If it’s my wings that spread the tactics to push us out and carve room for the condos that won’t stop taking root. I need to know if I’m John Crow, because I don’t think I am. I think I’m the wind, Aunt Ness. Please tell me if I’m the wind.

Your niece,

Daya

Morgan Christie's work has appeared in Callaloo, Room, Prism International, Prairie Fire, Obsidian, and elsewhere. She is the author of four poetry chapbooks and a short story collection These Bodies (Tolsun Books, 2020) which was nominated for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in fiction. She is the recent recipient of the 2022 Arc Poetry Poem of the Year Prize, 2023 Prairie Fire Fiction Prize, 2022 Digging Press Chapbook Series, and the 2023 Howling Bird Book Prize.