He stirred and snorted. Awake, eyes closed.

He said:

“I found … the sun.”

He found …

What marvelous dream did I interrupt?

The sun.

I found the sun. 

Why was it lost? Where did he find it? How did he find it? Who did he tell?

I like to think that when he closed his eyes, he leaped into a journey through the night, seeking the sun’s warm glow.

He grappled with dog-headed demons and scaled mountainous wave after wave of salty, high-tide sea froth, sputtering, eyes closed tight against the stinging salt water. He dived beneath the waves and wore his fingernails to ravaged nubs digging a tunnel to the core of Venus, only to find himself riding a comet back to Earth.

His wings of wax melted away in the comet’s heat and he fell, fell …

He landed at Ikea and wandered through faux bedrooms and kitchens, deeper into the flatware and furniture labyrinth, past throw pillows and cutlery, following the aroma of Swedish meatballs to food — and safety. The meatballs were not to his taste, so he dived into a pool of dark chocolate cake batter and backstroked across the English channel to the White Cliffs of Dover, which were made of marzipan and were more beige than white.

He hopped aboard a tennis ball and served himself over the Atlantic back home to Florida, where he landed on the Monorail and waved at the Magic Kingdom train station as the track broke free from its earthly bonds and unwound before him across the swamps and cattle sloughs of the I-4 corridor, back home.

Awake, eyes closed, gazing into the abyss.

And he said:

I found the sun.

He opened his eyes and smiled at me.