Innocent When You Dream • Tom Waits (by Henrick Kaoliszyn)

Crackling jive from a busted stereo. Guttural royalty, you think. A form of love you located in caves. Lit by hesitant candles, swayed by drunken spirits, nodding offbeat.

Your lids close and you see a circus in the sky. 

Its rolling cast of characters – elephants, sword-eaters, tightrope walkers, unicyclists decorated in flaky face paint – circle in a loop. 

Their eyes reflect hundreds of copper moons beaming off the roof of your room. Shiny in the cancerous black. A gleaming indicator.

You open your eyes. 

When you shut them again, he appears.

The man who raised you. The one who never asked questions about your interests. Who always spoke of women and war. Your father stands under a tree shirtless holding a smile but not a vodka.

You know it’s not real because he hugs you. You know it’s a dream because there’s no demanding performance of hyper masculinity. You don’t feel radioactive. You don’t feel anything resembling the relationship.

The logic of the subconscious is one that speaks to you long after the dead have gone to sleep. It’s one of editing. It’s one of ancient music drifting, clearing a path to something eternal. 

It’s one that refuses to take stock of damages. It’s one that makes you want to call him when you wake up. But, of course, you can’t.

Henrick Karoliszyn is a writer based in New Orleans. His fiction was selected by the Ernest Hemingway Foundation and published in the 2025 Hemingway Shorts literary anthology, shortlisted for The Letter Review Prize, and featured in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency among other literary magazines.