Category — Dreams

A little boy, barely three years of age, dark haired, light-skinned, cherub-faced, puppy-eyed, stood next to a bench at a bus stop, in the rain, in the dark of midnight. 

He was alone. Terrified, screaming out to another planet hoping someone there would hear him because on this one there was just him and the lurking monster that is the dark.

I could see him, but I was not there. My heart kicked in my chest with the desire to sprint to him, grab him in my arms with a fierce tenderness, drown him in the warm sunlight that holding him filled my heart with, hoping to melt the sharp ice of his loneliness. “I’m here to protect you,” I would say to him, framing his soft, little-boy face, locking my eyes with his so he could see the integrity of my promise.

But I couldn’t. He was submerged in the depths of my nightmare, and it was impossible for me to dive that deep. I, too, was trapped in helplessness. And even though he was a toddler, I started feeling more like him and less like a protective mother. As if I was utterly alone in the rain, in the darkness, crying like a child.

Until he and I, estranged by imaginary walls, were no longer alone. From my perspective across the wide street, a car drove up stealthily, long black body, black window eyes, like a jaguar targeting its prey in the pitch black. The little boy’s face morphed into frozen terror at the new unanticipated fear of not being alone. My desperation to help the boy exploded into screaming and pounding on the walls that my mind could not get through. I watched in horror as one eye of the car started moving downward. The reflection of the little boy began to disappear down the inside of the car; the black outline of a top hat appeared faintly. My eyes feverishly anticipated a heavy silver glint, and I waited through the violent rattle of my heartbeat for the last half of the window to sink, revealing-

I woke up.