The broken family
Half of Nomi’s family, “the better-looking half,” is “missing.” She and Ray “get up in the morning” and “move through” their “various activities until it’s time to go to bed.” “Every single night around ten o’clock” Ray tells her that he is “hitting the hay.” “Along the way to his bedroom” he’ll stop in the front hallway and place “notes on top of his shoes to remind him of things he has to do the next day.” The pair enjoys “staring at the Northern Lights together.” This imagery evokes a feeling of confusion and loneliness.
Loneliness
Nomi says that the town is “so severe” and “silent” that “the silence” drives her “crazy.” She even wonders if “a person can die from it.” It feels like “there’s an invisible force” that “exerts a steady pressure” on their words like “a hand to an open, spurting wound.” The town office building has “a giant filing cabinet full of death certificates” that say “chocked to death on his own anger or suffocated from unexpressed feeling of unhappiness.” “Silentium.” “The only thing” you hear at night is “semis barreling down the highway carting drugged animals off to be attacked with knives.” This imagery is supposed to evoke a feeling of terrible loneliness and fear.
The dream
Nomi doesn’t know where her mother is. She could go to “the remotest corners of Third World countries” to plant “Churches in Congo,” “wearing a pretty floral ankle-length dress, rubber boots and a straw hat.” However, Nomi doubts it, she can’t “picture” her mother “as a missionary.” The girl can see her “doing other things like deep-sea diving or leading groups of tourists around places in Europe.” Trudie had “always” wanted to see Paris. She used to sing “all those old Jacques Brel songs with a thick French accent.” This imagery evokes hope. Despite not knowing of her mother's whereabouts, Nomi hopes that her parent is free and happy.
