At Least They're Committed

. . . but I do remember piling a bunch of grown dogs, puppies and children into the back of a weathered station wagon that was already crammed with adults and pseudo adults, such as my two oldest children. I know my nieces were there and my mom and sister were somewhere down the road. The ‘wagon’ was on the hill facing downward.

The road was only a few feet wide, red dirt and random rocks, and overrun by lack of use. The left side dipped far below, deep into the dark woods, but rich pines and aspen sprouted from the downward slope and reached high above us, blocking the light. The right side was a steep, bushy wall with wild jasmine, milkweed thistle and columbines. It did not seem pretty, though. It seemed backwards and poor. As the masses piled inside, I was aware right away not all the dogs were ours: a gray puppy with white eyes and a brown one with cinnamon eyes were strange to me. I didn’t want to leave them behind.

It was the children that I’d gotten confused by mostly. Two or three extras. But especially The One. He was barely walking age, bald, ashen and his eyes were like pool blue saucers floating in mozzarella. I realized when he crawled out from the car — after we’d rocked, bumped and shaken down the mountain  — that he wasn’t ours. I picked him up, tiny and frail and wearing only a diaper, and carried him around.

He was wrong. His chest was surgically carved open, pulled apart from collar bone to naval, his lungs and rib cage exposed, white, gray and pulsing. Nothing pink, healthy nor bloodlike existed in this baby: just dried, man-made orifices. Brown, rubber tubes extended from his visible esophagus, below his chest, and outside his belly. They must be to drain . . . or to help him breathe . . . I don’t know. At first I thought, with his body so open, that they weren’t supposed to be there so I gave them a tug and he cried out just a little. I gasped in regret and held him closer.

I had to get him home. Obviously he’d been getting medical care; but honestly, I was so worried for him that I didn’t want to let him go even though I had no idea how to help him. I carried him around on my left hip the remainder of the time in the woods, outside an old chalet at the foot of the mountain. I held him tight while chauffeuring other children to their respective moms (my nieces who have yet to have children), while arguing bitterly with my husband, and while looking at old photos and realizing the person I thought was me in them wasn’t me at all, she had no facial features but was really quite colorful —  I kept him close until I woke.

I hope he’s OK. I miss him and even though it was just a dream, I feel a frantic need to find him. He’s important somehow. I need to know who he is; what he represents . . .

Any ideas?