waiting for the willow tree to return, to grow out of the ground in front of him, its roots in motion snarling deeper and toward his own house, because the feeling of this was that it was permanent, no turning back on this new reality—but to hold it off for a few more minutes he returns to his room, jumps into his bed, and again places his head deep into his yellow pillow, sinking in as if repeating the night before, whatever that night happened to be, where he fell asleep and entered a true proper dream mode, entering a dream properly to where nothing feels real, things change in front of your eyes because when things change so quickly they are not really there—in hopes that whether he's dreaming or not then at least he sleeps a bit more, either way it couldn't hurt, because he can't contact sandy at the moment, so whatever their plans were—but when he closes his eyes images race through, one of them literally a race car busting through his head, as if his brain were in no way going to allow him to go to sleep, because he needed to experience and understand what was happening to him in this new world—so 5 minutes later, again he opens his eyes, possibly to a new situation, a new setting, comfortably tina still juts her hip out to him, which encourages him, and he wakes up not so disoriented, he still smells the coffee that already had been made, half eaten toast likely still sitting on the plate, he'll find out soon enough, and he stands and taps tina inadvertently on the breasts, usually his finger lands somewhere on the hip, so already maybe something's off, but he continues, not letting his thoughts bother him too much, at least not until he allows himself to look out the window again—because when so much is at stake such as reality then the worries normally that you're used to having, they just run through your minds like lists of to-do chores, they mean nothing, really, or at least compared to this—some real thoughts, like his father telling him a couple months ago that he had a blood clot, while he was driving his truck somewhere in canada, it was snowing and he said he probably should have never gone out in the first place, he should have called the company to tell them the load would arrive a day late and they would have to live with that, because already 3 inches had fallen, quickly early morning in the dark, the snowplows couldn't keep up with it, but he wanted to return home as soon as possible to see his wife, valentin's mother, because she had been complaining about a growing family of mice in the house, in the living room, she had said that behind the couch she was pretty sure that she found a nest of them, only noticing with a glance of an eye, some kind of little swarm moving and breathing and eating whatever scraps of bread, cheese, chocolate or cheetos they could find, and they were growing around this pile of food—and so valentin's dad said he'd return as soon as possible, stupidly he thought later he should have just called an extermination company, he'd do that as soon as he could, after he delivers the load—but the snow kept pounding into his wind shield, his cab seemed to be closing in on him, his back was hurting again—and eventually the storm transformed into a whiteout, the truck started slipping and he couldn't see, neither the road nor other cars ahead of him, so he turned the truck left a bit and the tires caught the hard ridges on the shoulder that created the buzzing sound to warn of veering off the road, but now this time because he could see so little of the road the ridges saved him, guided him to safety on the shoulder so that he could stop and wait it out, hoping the snow wouldn't bury him in—he decided to head outside to check the truck and his location, just get his bearings, and when he jumped out of the high cab he felt a sharp pain in his calf, like a cramp, and he stumbled, his bare hands hit the snow, and he felt paralyzed, he rested for a couple minutes to gain strength and determination through sharp attacks of pain on his left calf, he climbed back into the cab and struggled to breathe, and he called emergency and it took them 2 hours to arrive, they found him nearly passed out, suffering from blood clots in his calf and lungs—after hearing this story valentin decided they should spend some time together like take a trip to a place of his father's choice, and now he's wondering whether he's in the same place, the world where his father still exists, hasn't died off already, and he arrives at the kitchen, still half eaten toast on the table, and out the window no large willow, instead a lawn of dandelions, crabgrass, brown spots and a couple plastic grocery bags tumbling by—he sits again and that slight pain creeps up through his stomach, that he'll burst out in tears, he knows he's a crier, the disappointment overwhelms him because he can't remember, he doesn't know, where or how or why, his friend sandy's phone number, he must find it somewhere, or his father, he certainly can remember that, but no doubt they're gone or don't exist or he'll have to wait to return home from this new place where his home has landed—he finishes the toast but still hunger grips him, like he hadn't eaten in a week, and he heads to the front door of the house, curiosity melts away his fear for the moment, he opens the door, and first thing he feels is the warmth of the bright sun, the first thing he hears is a distant lawnmower, he smells something like fresh dirt or fertilizer for a garden, and he walks out barefooted into this beautiful new day, into this new world—a boy rides by on his one-speed bike, he hits a bump in the road and almost loses balance, but he's alert enough to recover quickly, and the boy turns his head and glares at valentin—