here’s what happened - sand got into my shoe and ended up staying there. it didn’t bother me, so I let it be. at first, the sand would stick to my socks and would follow me up the stairs. later on, when I had used the shoes for a good while, the sand would only stay to the soles. I’d notice it briefly when standing around - the faint grittiness under me. eventually, I began to feel skeptical. although the amount of sand had lessened, it never really went away. and it was like this for a while, even after washing the shoes and losing them for an extended period of time. the person who wore the shoes before they came back to me never noticed the sand, but it felt all the same after getting them back again. somehow, the sand in my shoes were the best way I could think about this. after waking up in the field, my sense of the things I did earlier on came back with a certian clarity. actions that were seemingly mundane became something else, shifting into different shapes, momentum building towards something I couldn’t expect. all those things I left myself are finally coming back to me, or coming back in a way that I can now notice. for a while, I didn’t give the sand in my shoe a second thought. it didn’t occur to me that the small layer under me was leaning against such a larger force. 

the field wasn’t any less tense as it always had been but different things seem to settle when it gets dark. I thought I saw a light out there, coming from the dirt. I must have seen it before, or something like that. and a plane overhead gives the same feeling - out trailing just far enough, distant, and all the same from where I was standing. moving closer, and its shape smears into leaves, the bark, and in the air, which was still heavy, resting in the fog folding into dew. the light soon left and that was the start of it all.

on my way back, I found a phone laying in the grass, or a part of one. the smooth plastic was still warm from something, warmer than the grass around it. it sat in the grass, nearly blending with it and untethered to anything significant. being held like that, I almost wanted to leave it there and I was glad that at least the imprint of the phone parted just enough to show dirt. there was a slight rattle when I shook the phone, nothing but a small piece of something broken off. when I raised the phone to my ear, I could hear a light hum. I let other people see the phone too, but nobody could make out the hum. weeks went by and eventually, I lost interest.

I forgot about the phone in a pile of laundry next to my bed. they weren't my favorite shirts so it just stayed there for a while - not quite clean, not yet dirty. sitting between use and not use, I let the pile sit. between something clean and handfuls of other things. in some kind of way, the phone must have been building something deep inside there. I already had a slight ringing in my ears so I figured that even if the phone still had its hum, I probably wouldn't hear it. it was a passing thought that evaporated too quick. weeks went by and the phone just stayed there. a heavy wind started blowing in from the coast, through the buildings in the city too. the hot air that followed sank low to the ground, warming the night. it was harder to sleep and everyone had their windows open, letting the night in. every morning, I'd wake up damp with sweat having came out of a similar kind of dream.

floating around like that felt a lot better after two or three days. sometimes, I’d remind myself of the rattling in a curious way. rattling in the shape of something lumpy or a dull sharpness of something sitting still. elbowing forward made the most sense as with all heavy things. smooth, or something with a glossy touch. tumbling against the metal and avoiding the seams. there is nothing that could be said about the light passing through it or around it. but there were times that the plastic did seem to glow. or maybe that was just what I told myself, telling myself things like that like passing the time. only believing those things for a brief instance before coming back to the room with the pile of clothes not quite larger, but crumpled into a different shape.

the dream came again and I found myself in the field. pools of light marked the grass, then spread somewhere else by the wind. everything seems to happen with a certain slowness to it. a ringing in the ears for the ringing in the air. powerlines pulling at the cheek, and pushing back again. everytime I find myself here, still here, I stand looking for something. a husk left alone holding a shape for something else. homes in the grass are for something better. another year might pass before things stop changing or that was just where everything was headed. finding myself here again, and again. the phone rings somewhere in the dream or out of it and I wake up to the same thing again. 

all things waft and settle in the same way. the hunch showed itself in the ordinary way I’d wake up in the morning. and it was all so subtle - the clarity when there was clutter and energy when there wasn’t. the old dreams were gone in a way I couldn’t recall. and not even the the basic shape of it either. and then I began to see it: the glass augury. each night, the augury traveled deeper into my mind, then back out again. with a sticky coating to it, the augury brought my dreams back out to the phone. with less things there, it was only easier to see. always a speck, just a pinky nail long that reflects sharp light when it meanders through the air. small enough to catch, but still uncatchable. my dreams were fading around it and the details went first. then the people, then the things. 

with the last of what I have, I follow the augury as it flows through the emptiness where a dream once was. the augury would tumble about, tossings its light as it moved. gathering things as it touched, the augury had some what of a flutter or loose spiral to it as the ghosts of my dream left unfamiliar space. empty piling upon empty, I peer deeper into the augury, close enough to make it my world. blowing at the augury would send it further. all that tumbling like the sound of a bell. and at the end of the night, the augury grows heavy and it sinks back towards the ground, burrowing to rest. somewhere in this moment - this moment that passes loosely - me and the augury pass by each other. with nothing that really needs to be said, the augury returns to the phone, and I wake up.