I come out of a beautiful dream. It’s embarrassing, the mocking expulsion like a kid’s belch you hear as he gives you the finger. Bright yellow bile add light and texture to the linoleum grey floor, for a second, could be a splash of paint unlike the cool honey melon I gave you in the dream, dirt still on it freshly picked from the vine.
Not even a minute passes. Patients’ complaints, “Christ de calice mon hostie. Dégueule chez toé, mongole.”
But the smell of vomit hasn’t carried far anyway it’s free here, the beds, the drugs, the blood, what’s the problem?
“Who’s bringing them in? Welfare Agent?” groans an English patient. An amorphous blue figure crammed with the poverty of the city snorts, turns as slow as a snow truck and waddles out the room, farting thunder. Kids rush in. They press their little noses against my long matted hair, still crusty with blood and kiss my cheeks, the stench and bloody clumps of hair like home baked tart and the womb. They hold on.
“So, how's life in a foster home?” I say, “Nice?”
“Wanton,” says the youngest girl, standing back.
“Worse,” says the oldest, they speak Jouale, pick their noses.
“Don't wash their hands. Don't braid their hair. Don't read for pleasure—“
“—or knowledge.”
“Homework time, they play mean jokes on each other, grinning their yellow teeth.
“I've begun reading Treasure Island to them. The social worker looked astonished. She said: you’re five. How are you able to read that?”
“Foster mummy says don't read too much or else your head will pop.”
“The other children mimic her like a parrot. Tell her to shut up. I tell them: ‘looks drab on you telling Foster mummy to shut up’ and they hop around shouting ‘Eat me’.”
“What do you expect?” says the youngest, “apples do not fall far from the tree.” “Whose tree is it?”
“I don’t care anymore! How much longer must we endure being hostages, hm?”
“Don't worry,” I say, “just until I get up on my feet.”
The youngest girl sighs, twisting a cotton swab: “What's new with you, Rosie?”
“I would love to hear you read me a story.”
“No.” Her voice sullen. “Something new.”
I look over and smile at her. “I dreamt that I flew and gave a man a melon. Don’t believe it myself, giving a melon.”
“One of our melons?” says the older girl.
“Of course,” says the youngest, “The best.”
“The dead man was with you?”
“Jon,” I blurt, my stomach turning. Maybe the meds taking effect, maybe my head, but just then my eyes like curtains close. And nothing stirs.
***
The smell wakes me, a mix of bleach and puke, water draining into a screechy bucket, squeaky wheels wheeling away. Sticky small hand caresses my arm. When I open my eyes there are two long tubes of fluorescent lights encased in ribbed pyramid covers on the ceiling.
In saunters a bony nurse with fish stick hair and wide-rimmed tiger-striped glasses. The kids are still here, the eldest girl points to the wires and IV drip. The youngest crosses the room; she lifts wooden tongue depressors out of a glass container, plants one on the roof of her tongue and gawks at big finger-marked mirror. She lifts the depressor, shuts her mouth, says, “Kindly assist mother please, she is indisposed.” The nurse hums, and when she is done, the young girl looks away from the mirror and says, “That will be all, Grace.” The nurse shakes her head and leaves.
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