I flew through the back door.

He turned toward me, and I noticed he was in a cloud. He started laughing.

“I see you!” He said and started laughing.

I took a step forward, “Carla?” I asked, “Is it you?”

He stopped laughing, “No,” he said. “But I know her, and she knows me.”

“Look,” I said, moving a step closer, “I don’t know what I did to you, but I’m sorry.”

I was moving closer to the outside water spigot, planning on taking the hose and spraying. Dan had hooked up the power sprayer, so I knew the water would come out fast, and I wouldn’t have to put my thumb over the end to make it spray farther. I looked down the hose, and it wasn’t hooked up to the spigot.

He started laughing. “Looking for this?” he asked, and when I looked up, I saw he was holding the garden hose, the long metal power sprayer still hooked to the end and glinting in the back yard light.

He laughed harder and harder.

“Carla,” I said. “I’m so sorry, what the world did to you, I wasn’t fair.”

“No,” he said. “Not Carla, but I know her, and she knows me.”

Then the cloud around him shifted and came at me, it was flies. Thousands and thousands of flies. I could feel them on my skin, crawling over my face toward my eyes, my ears, and into my mouth.

The sudden shock of them left me stunned for an instant, then I started flailing my arms and tried to shout something, but they flew in my mouth. I started choking on them, there were so many.

I felt myself fall to the ground, still coughing up flies. I felt hands under my arms and felt myself being dragged inside. Dan had saved me, I screamed and leaned against him while I swatted at my arms, my legs, my face at flies that weren’t there anymore.