Dream of San Miguel and the balloon man that wobbles into view like a colourful but lame animal. Lumpy and riotous, bits dangling and drifting from him as if we’re all living undersea. And then the spinning women on stilts, twirling, her lace sleeves drifting and no one’s watching and she doesn’t care. And then your mother calls in the middle of everything and what was a river is a trickle. The scene in the square suddenly depopulated and the shadows retreat and the woman in stilts lifts off the head of her costume and underneath she is plain and maybe a bit sad, and the balloon vendor sits down and takes the bunches of balloons from his back and lights a cigarette, and the cowboys remove their hats and fall asleep on the benches, and the business people come out not to eat helados and not to walk arm in arm, but to rush from here to there, from café to bank. These things happen not incrementally, but all at once. All at once the taxis disburse and the birds hide themselves in the sculptural trees. There is nothing on the breeze. The music is thin and the church bells ring, but that’s it. Two lovers who were engaged in a kiss suddenly withdraw their tongues from each others’ smooth mouths and, suddenly aware of what they were doing, wipe their mouths with the backs of their hands. This is what happens when your mother calls in the middle of a dream in San Miguel.