This is the dream of one of the heroes left behind by the end of the war at the ending-of-the-world-that-wasn't: the boulevard is empty and summer lingers in honey-white light, the only remnant of the story that ended two months ago aside from one miracle, one last unasked for wish, who is walking towards the house on the right in his scuffed shoes and untidy shirt (he is clean and worn through like a shell washed up on the beach); there is someone in the back yard collecting oranges from an apple tree (a lucky casualty of the strangeness that came and went outside of dreams) and who doesn't see him, who is absorbed in his calm afternoon until the reunion of everything the heroes thought they could never have again, things and people who were lost to them because they still think people like them lose everything, the part of the dream that isn't remembered when the hero wakes up (does he? do you think he should?), and he drops his ladder in a clatter that covers the sound of his (the miracle's) knocking; he will wait on the steps until he, the hero who doesn't much appreciate quiet evenings anymore, opens the door for an evening stroll (and a drink), stands in shock, bottom dropping out of his stomach and the miracle will smile patiently and a little awkwardly and he will notice that he still hasn't gotten used to his world because one of his shoes is untied and the other is sloppy and this is the most endearing thing he thinks he's ever seen; he will invite him inside and he will perch on the table, and they'll talk and joke and lapse into long silences because, after all, there was a war of sorts, but also a grand old adventure so the man who wasn't a man but something grander but not better will eventually beam at everything and they'll know they're still young; they won't tell the man in the backyard that he's arrived; but they'll laugh and hug, shattering the fragile old-books scented silence of the place, "I can't believe you're back," a half-candid response, but a truthful smile and, "I have always said you have angels watching over you," and in the ensuing smiles the man who was picking oranges from the apple tree will say, "well, if you're right, this is way better than those creepy statues Mom had in her lawn," and the hero who is dreaming this will say, "remember when I moved one of those outside of your window? Man, you were so freaked," and then; maybe they will play Parcheezi, or take a hint from the hero who is not currently dreaming and watch Blink again, or watch Ghostbusters or any number of things from their world that they always promised him they'd watch together and this is only natural to appear in a dream; there are things they won't talk about, of course, but- the hero- he'll wake up; in this version he does because you can't go back and change what happened, that's what they say, but; do you think he should?