A strong contralto voice wavered out of the speakers with a slight reverb over the drum-line, pulled in an anguish he recognized for the first time. They had danced to this song three and a half years before on the orange gym floor of the community church, poorly disguised with plastic Roman columns, fake ivy, and tulle to look like their idea of an up-scale hotel, when in reality it only looked cheap. She in her discount dress and he in a navy second-hand suit. The only luxury between them were the mother-of-pearl cufflinks she insisted on buying him with the money she saved wearing her sister's shoes and not wearing a veil. They couldn't even afford real rings, but she surprised him with the gift, because she so desperately wanted him to have something nice. Back then, this song was an indication, and announcement, a promise, that they were each other's dream and they didn't need physical or material things.
A year ago, they danced to this song again, on the chipped and bubbling linoleum, the breakfast bar that served as their only table littered with glossy grad school look-books, bank statements, and loan applications. Her cheeks had more color then, her bones more flesh, her eyes more hope. She laughed then, and they talked of the dream at the other end, when hew would have rows of cufflinks and new suits, and he would buy her a real wedding ring.
Her cheeks were sallow now, her bones wer razors cutting through her skin, and her under-eyes licked with blue, unable to see the end. As he listened to the impassioned voice wail, the irony of it pierced him--sweet dreams weren't made of this.
