Flying lesson

With all this newness, a new city, a new language, new people, I sometimes forget about the newness of my father’s absence. I sometimes forget he isn’t simply not here, but he is not anywhere. He is dead. Four weeks already. Time flies. If anything flies, it is time.
But when I think about other things during the day, he is there at night. Last night I dreamt I was visiting my parents. It was a house and a garden I had never seen before. My father was burning things in a metal drum. I figured it would be rubbish, his old stuff, but when I looked in the fire I saw he was burning my shoes. Some old pairs, but I also saw a new pair of boots I had never worn.