His dream was of laughter, thunder, and boats, all rolling; lightning, waves, and bones, all crashing.

He always did the same thing when he awoke. He sat up, blurry eyed, turned to his right, and didn’t notice the wheelchair until he tried to slip his feet into his slippers. He only felt one slip on and when he looked down to guide his left foot into the second slipper he discovered that he didn’t have any left leg below the knee, even though he could still feel it. Panic rose inside him, but after 5 months of this he was able to contain it. Not at all like the first morning he awoke to the intricately mixed look of fear, love, and regret on his wife’s face. His memory was returning slowly, he knew that he had been in a terrible boating accident, knew that he had lost his leg to a shark, knew that he lost his friend to the sea. Knew from what others told him. All he had was his dream. He had made peace with the story he was told but he couldn’t forgive his own mind. Why must he dream of his healthy body?