I don’t remember falling asleep. I don’t remember the sirens or Michel screaming my name or Ruth meowing and pawing at my limp hand. I don’t remember if I took my pill, I never remember anything nowadays. I do remember that this is a dream. It’s not a dream because I’ve woken up a speck of dust, a single celled organism floating in a never ending sea; But it’s a dream because I feel it is. I know in my gut, like I know my son’s face or my way to the grocery store, that this is a dream. This isn’t real.

There is no sun here, only water. If I had lungs I couldn’t breathe because the silence here is suffocating. I see sunlight, but it’s so far, I have no legs to kick me up to the surface. I feel as if I’m a flea stuck on the coat of a humongous ocean dog. My hands can’t grab and yank at my hair in a futile attempt to wake the hell up, my legs can’t kick me to the sun and out of this empty ocean, my throat won’t go hoarse from screaming for help because none of them are here. I am a single cell, floating my way through the ocean.

It feels like an eternity, but somehow not as long as the ads run in between Jeopardy or how long it’s been since I’ve seen Michel’s face. But I grow, not by much, but I do. I grow into a lump, and I get pushed by the current. The tide kicks around my evolving body as I grow, my body drifts through the waves yearning for the sun.

Even though I don’t have a gut, I feel a tingle slither its way into it. It’s the same feeling that I always get, go feed that stray cat or something like go check in on Michel, see how he is in college. It never fails to guide me but now it whispers to my soul, Your’e here, here at the dawn of time. You’re the first thing alive. My gut also tells me that there’s no point in questioning the logic of this, after all this is a dream.  

A horrible, never-ending dream. I wouldn’t call this a nightmare, nightmares visit me on mom’s birthday and smothers me in guilt. This is, well what is this? It’s boring but not an unwelcome dream. I wish I could leave, go back to Michel, go back to the first time I held him, his cries blessed my ears and his small face, and stubby fingers. I have to grow faster, I have to grow faster so I can see my son again. My slowly growing body is taking too long to evolve, I need to skip the tiny phase and jump straight to the chimpanzee phase or the human mother phase.

Too many years have passed, I’ve been stuck here for too long. Eventually I find my way to the sun and photosynthesize and all that junk into a larger life form and find my way to land. Living as a crocodile is fun for awhile but I move on from that and gain fur and something that resembles a brain. Waiting becomes much easier because it’s all I ever do anymore. Screaming bloody murder and crying to get out doesn’t do anything, it just makes me weary. I always used to be weary when I was awake, I’m not surprised this is happening. I was 96 and it was about time. I didn’t think this would be the after life, I wasn’t expecting heaven or hell but certainly not this.

Before I know it, I’m human. I have my eyes, my son’s smile and my mothers voice. But I’m not burdened with wrinkles, I’m always energized and never feel that telltale ache in my shoulder. Taking advantage of my youthful body, I travel the world. Sightseeing has always been a passion of mine and might as well make the best of it in this weird dream world. I travel all over the world, trying not to interfere with the on goings of normal people but still helping in little ways I can.

I don’t notice the time fly by as I wander, I don’t notice that it is a week before I give birth to my son. As soon as I can, I hop on a plane and make my way to the small hospital.

But when I open the door to the hospital, the entire place is empty. The halls are devoid of noise, except for the wails of a newborn baby. The air is holding its breath, and the lack of beeping machines causes my eyes to dart around the barren halls. I tiptoed my way around the hospital trying to find the cause of the crying baby. It gets louder and louder as I feel my heart beat faster and faster. I bite at the inside of my mouth, but never speak in trepidation of interrupting the baby’s wails. My feet dash up the stairs- as fast as my hand shakes on the railing, much too fast. My gut guides me; it is the air under my feet while jerking my eyes around the vacant hospital in search of the infant. My pace speeds up, as I jump from floor to floor still following its crying. I sprint past room after room as the crying gains volume. I am determined to find this child.

Then, all of a sudden I hear the scream of silence all throughout the quiet hospital. The sound of my feet pounding on the tranquil tile is too quiet and my gut is no longer screaming at me to find the child, but more importantly the sound of a baby not crying is the loudest; it stands out against the empty noise of the hospital. Why did it stop crying? My eyes cautiously drift to the door I’ve stopped in front of. It doesn’t feel right, my fingers on the sad blue door but nonetheless I push open the door and walk in.

The walls loom over me, much larger than they should be and it is too dark. Somehow, the flowers outside don’t glow in here. A single flickering candle is next to a swaddle of blankets, illuminating the large room and the light pink blankets. I reach out to the pit in my gut, it’s silent too as if not wanting to interfere with me and the baby but it still silently reassures me that this is all a dream. Tiptoeing over to the baby I pause not believing my eyes. I could never forget the look of those eyes. I was not expecting this, I thought the baby would be my son, but no its me, Eve.

Time passes too quickly now because it’s been decades since the hospital. I’ve hidden myself away in isolation, never eating or sleeping. Only listening to the whispering nonsense of my gut as it pushes me through this dream. When I was in the real world, people always theorized that when humanity falls nature would take over but not in this world; no, nothing takes over, all the world is at this point is nothing. So in search for comfort and some sense of normalcy as I wait, I return to the ocean. The vacuum of silence is familiar, and the dark blue welcoming. I have no need for air so I just drift. I drift until my eyes close once more. 

The ocean seems to have drowned out my screaming gut, its nagging voice overwhelmed by the salty water. It gives me back my body, causing everything to rest and my hands no longer to tremble. I feel my body begin to warp as the water swirls around me, it starts to pick up pace and the world starts to shake. I shrink while the planet shakes and cracks. This must be the end of both me and the planet, maybe when I wake up I’ll find my son in the debris of this dream. The sun gets farther and farther away from my minuscule body, but closer and closer to the planet but this doesn’t matter because by the time it collides with the earth, I am awake.

I remember waking up in the silent hospital and in the same room, I remember the fluorescent lights illuminating my son’s face as his relieved tears drop onto my wrinkled face. I remember him telling me he loves me and I remember his smile. I don’t remember my immortal dream and the voice in my heart- not my gut telling me it’s time to leave for real this time.