Death of a Dream

The Death of A Dream

Food no longer has a distinct taste. The tick-tock of a clock resonates in your ears. The world seems to pop out of the background like in a 3-d picture. A tiny prick turns into a stab wound. A hint of chocolate remains long after the offensive dessert is eaten.

Mom served dinner as usual. When we eat at Mom’s house there is a sense of formality, a sense that everything is in its place in the world. Tonight, I needed that sense of rightness. I cannot recall what I ate. The table, I remember sitting at the table. The doctor told me to eat right after she told me my baby was dead. I need my strength for tomorrow she warned me. Tonight was looming ahead of me. She was worried about tomorrow. The food went in my mouth. I chewed, but nothing, no taste, nothing. It was like trying to work a crick out of your jaw. Chewing and chewing. I must have swallowed. After dinner, Dad usually has dessert. He likes his dessert. The scent of chocolate overpowered me. Like the pungent odor of a shitty diaper. Mom must have served something chocolate.

Mom called Pastor Frey. She clings to religion in the face of disaster. Pastor Frey and his wife, Cathy, come over later. We sit in the living room. We sit huddled around the television as if the normalcy of it will change the circumstances. I’m sure they are talking with us, expressing their condolences. The world appears to be a giant silent movie, all of the actors wordlessly careening forward to the inevitable end. The tick-tock of the clock drowns out any attempt at comprehension. The ticking draws my attention. My head turns toward the offending clock, trails flow in front of my eyes, rainbows of color bursting out of every molecule in sight. The gold second hand of the clock in stark contrast to the black face.

9:15pm

My eyes close. It seems an eternity before I find the strength for my lids to rise again.

9:16pm

The world has stopped.
Pastor Frey and Cathy say goodbye.

10:00pm

I wrap the coarse blanket around my exhausted frame. Closing my eyes again, this time I attempt to close my ears, too. The ticking of the clock is driving me mad. The Tell Tale Heart by Poe comes to mind. The madness of the constant ticking mimics the beating of a heart, the reference cuts me deep in my soul. There should be two beating hearts where now there is only mine. Blackness folds itself around me. In the darkness, I sit with my eyes closed. There is an abundance of sensations in such emptiness. The sofa, where I have napped comfortably millions of times, is unforgiving to my huge burden. The texture of the nappy fabric mimicked thousands of grains of sand. The constant irritations made me readjust, heaving my distended abdomen from one side to the other.

A searing pain rips across the center of my massive stomach. Lightening bolts of pain trail across my eyelids. Here come the contractions. They subside. Rolling away like a rolling pin that starts at the top of my uterus and rolls down every inch of the hard dough that comprises my uterus. The pain is unbearable, not the contractions, but instead the knowledge that I am not awaiting the birthday of my only son but instead the death day.