On Dreams
I vividly dream. Touch all the corners and edges of the things my consciousness is unable or unwilling to name. Illuminate every single space holding a breath from an eight year old little girl who simply couldn't bear to watch her father drive away even one more time.
Awakening to a new day is slamming the box shut. Ripping my awareness back into "now". A sardonic chuckle, a voice somewhere insides whispers, "That never happened. You're crazy."
I can recognize gaslighting.
I just wish the call wasn't coming from inside the house.
Walk with me for a moment so that I might give a spark of life to those buried stories, written by a teenager who's voice and hands are shaking from alcohol withdrawal, buried by the logical 22 year old who has no time to waste on such nonsense because life is barreling forward whether she likes it or not.
Because this one deserves to dwell among all the living pieces of me. The ones that no longer fit together as well as they once did. The ones that weren't told they'd need to babysit dreams for the rest of forever. The ones who sag under the burden and beg for respite.
I work quite a lot, you know. So naturally, walking up to this building in the dead of night made sense. Scanning my badge to gain entry is second nature. Waiting at the chrome elevator doors outside of the barren OR wasn't questionable.
But it's broken, someone tells me. I remember seeing an elevator crash straight down to the foundation of a building in this or that tv show recently. I know a bad omen when I see one. The stairs await my retreat.
The stairs are perfect.
I can see her before I punch in.
Two floors. Three floors. Fourth floor. "I'm here to see my baby." But no one is listening and she lays there in the bassinet so quietly, so sweetly, so perfect.
And who is in the bed beside her?
"Oh we're just waiting to be discharged." He pauses to reconnect the tubing to his wife's tracheostomy. The blue hospital gown drapes in dramatic waves around her impossibly tiny habitus, alluding to much more human presence than is true.
"So are we." I manage a soft smile. I understand being ready to go home. After all, wasn't I excited to get out of here? And for what? Just to come back to work and a broken elevator and the discovery of my brand new baby having a roommate before she's gifted a ticket home?
There's no time.
I need to punch in.
I cannot leave her.
These are my thoughts as I gather her into my arms, exit the room into a hallway so empty every step across the linoleum and towards the stairway echos as if to signal my wrongdoing.
But she's my baby. And I'm in the tele hub, you see. There's no reason I can't bring her with me.
Step
Squeak (squeak squeak squeak....)
Step
Squeak (squeak squeak squeak....)
Step
Squeak (squeak squeak squeak....)
Sound waves just a pinball going for a high score.
We descend the steps to the ICU. Ready for the onslaught of questions. Or am I?
"Oh my goodness what a peanut!" "What a sweetheart!" "How precious!" The obligatory remarks nearly always made over a fresh tiny human.
They don't concern me. I see him. He's getting report. Speaking with other physicians as I hear the dayshift charge nurse muttering to himself about doctors unaware of their own schedules, wondering if Zack is around to explain the appearance of an off duty overnight intensivist.
But he's the one I want.
"What's her name?"
I don't know.
I have to ask him.
How do I explain this to them? I don't. I simply continue my efforts to cross the expanse of the nurse's station.
Step
Squeak (squeak squeak squeak....)
Step
Squeak (squeak squeak squeak....)
Step
Squeak (squeak squeak squeak....)
He's gone before I can arrive. Dr. Gaeckle throws his head back into his signature guffaw. "Of course I'll take the night off, he can have the shift!" But where did he go, Nathan?
He needs to tell me her name.
He also needs to sleep.
Don't I give people what they need?
I retreat, and for the first time I glance down to meet her eyes.
Her smile expands galaxies, my friend.
Her blue eyes cross oceans of stars as they twinkle with a sort of knowing.
All I know for sure is that I love her. Above my head shines a myriad of stars. The big dipper catches my attention only briefly.
You see
I have wishes to make
While gazing into the depths of far away solar systems reflected back to me from this
This new thing we created
A product of love I had never truly known before he stepped into my life.
Step
Squeak (squeak squeak squeak....)
Step
Squeak (squeak squeak squeak....)
Step
Squeak (squeak squeak squeak....)
Someone might notice she's missing from the family care center. This isn't a retreat so much as a meandering to face up to the consequences.
I stole this little love of mine. And how beautiful a thing she is, named or not.
Love simply existing in the arms of someone who can barely hold all of the space that spans the waking reality of never having been loved.