We want details, Dead Man. We demand a description, a download, a dossier. Definites, even if only a distillation.

Dead Man, do you dream? Do you dance? Do you dither? Does it grow dismal on the darkside? Dear me, disregard that – I daren’t even draw a distinction between a darkness and a daytime. Don’t worry about disagreeing.  

But still – dilemma. Desirous of a daunting and dismal dialogue, most definitely, drawn from drafted documents, a dump of drama, about the day you drowned. The day you ditched the discotheque. Doffed your Dolly Varden and met your doom. A dozen dopes outside the deli on the other side of the dock, drinking diet sodas, dangerous district, dogs and dealers in doorways. Dispersed like doves when the detectives, desperate for some discourse, drove through in a Daihatsu. Depends on who you deal with, debatable discussions dictating disappointing denouements. Damn this neighbourhood. Drab, too.

Dad, dirty dress shirt and denim jeans, was having dinner when they descended on your dwelling. Dashed at the door, rattled the decorative dingle-dangles on display. The devil distributes disproportionately. A detective did her duty and dictated. Dad, dismayed and distressed, demanded: Delinquents? Due process, they declared and then departed. Deep breaths till dawn.

I digress.

Dead Man, do you mind? You delay. Decades pass and your debacle distracts us, your dismal dedicants, devoted but daft, dutiful in degrees. Let’s do a deal, Dead Man. Do a diddy.

Do something.

…

Tristan Foster is a writer from Sydney, Australia. He is the author of two books, the short story collection Letter to the Author of the Letter to the Father and 926 Years with Kyle Coma-Thompson. Midnight Grotesques, with Michelle Lynn Dyrness, is forthcoming from Sublunary Editions.