As I lay on the uncomfortable mattress in what was probably the worst insulated room in the world the only thing I could do was think. It was neither fun nor productive. I wanted to move and help or leave or something besides remain stuck in a room that was probably somewhere between freezing and frozen. People moved and occupied themselves to various degrees. The P.E. teacher, who’s name I still didn’t know, seemed to have finished his shift with the two boys and a female I hadn’t seen before had take his place. Instead of drawing they were sitting in a little triangle, a picture book lay on the woman’s knee and she was telling its story with an enthusiasm that was only a little forced.
The littlest one looked over to me every few minutes. I couldn’t say he was uninterested in the story or the presentation, but there was something about me that apparently was just slightly more interesting at times. It might have been the fact that I was watching them off and on and it was just his way of making sure I wasn’t going to do something strange, or it could be that I almost died.
Either way, sleep came over me eventually. The warmth generated by my body heat that couldn’t escape because the layers of blankets began relaxing my muscles and I could feel my eyes dropping once again. It was comforting and, with Mrs. Snowburn and the P.E. teacher nearby, at least marginally safe so I let the sleep come without any complaint.
My mind, however, had different ideas. Instead of relaxing with the heat it seemed to speed up as my eyes closed. My sleep was filled with dreams of snow. Sometimes it would just be miles of snow and white cloud, to the point that it looked like I was in a room made entirely of white. I’d turn around for a bit to try and look for anything to help me decide on a direction but couldn’t see anything that would help. Eventually I’d choose a random direction and start walking. Eventually the cold and the fatigue from walking would build up until I would simply collapse in the snow, only to find myself back on my feet and, presumably, back where I started.
After five or six runs of this I started to notice a change. It would take longer for me to collapse, or the wind would try and direct the way I walked. One time I swore I saw a tree in the distance before it was surrounded by falling snow once again. I tried to walk in that direction but collapsed before I found anything. Then it stopped.
I collapsed in the snow and, when I stood up again, the snow was gone. Not just the falling snow, but the snow on the ground as well. I was on a hill that looked like it had been drawn in by a green crayon. Almost entirely flat a few shoots stuck up in places where the person drawing had failed to stay within the lines. The tree I had seen was there, a thick brown line surrounded entirely by black. A pair of eyes opened from a dark hole in the tree’s center but nothing ever came out.
To my right a bright red line formed in the grass and a large square was created in the middle of the field. As the square slowly filled with lines of red a small square and an elongated rectangle were left alone. I began walking towards the red block, trying to get behind it as I did, but it seemed to turn with me. As I walked a large triangle began to form above the square and was eventually filled in with a bright blue color. The triangle’s bottom corners hung over the square’s edge and a small trapezoid with a flat top grew from the right slant. It was a house, or rather, a child’s drawing of a house.
Two black lines crisscrossed in the small square, one horizontal and one vertical. Shortly after the lines were in place a tiny child appeared in the window and looked at me. Unlike everything else she wasn’t drawn, she looked as real as I did. Dirty blond hair and red bow reminded me of the little girl I had seen in the school, Jessica. As she hoped up and down I could see her mouth move, she was excited about something but I couldn’t exactly tell what it was.
As she continued to point outside the as yet created door began to be filled in with a red-brown somewhere between the red of the house and the brown of the tree. A small, yellow circle appeared about midway down the left side demonstrated the doorknob. Immediately after it finished forming it shrank and a thin white line appeared on its left side.
Three people stepped out of the house, first a tall thin man with large glasses came out of the door. He was smiling without any emotion. His hair was, I could only guess, the same color as Jessica’s. You see, they weren’t real. I looked real and Jessica looked real, but these people were drawn in like everything else. His shirt was basically his body but drawn with a different color, green instead of peach. His pants were blue and his shoes were black. Each finger stuck out separately from the rest and the fifth digit looked like it came out his palms rather than the ends of his hands. After him came a woman holding a baby, both drawn like the man. The woman wore a long dress the spread out as it got lower, entirely colored pink. She was, as far as I could tell bare foot. A tangle of black hair curlicued around her head and a static smile covered her face. The baby never moved, just held onto the mother with both hands, a white diaper was its only clothes.
As I stood there examining them they seemed to glide out of the door right in front of me and stopped. They never moved after that, just stood there smiling at me but never really looking around or seeing me. Though it was probably an accurate depiction of a child’s ability to draw people it still creeped me out. “Mommy daddy! Come inside, it’s not safe!” Jessica poked her head out the door to yell her instructions then slipped back inside.
I hesitated before waving my hand in front of their faces. No reactions. As I failed to catch the baby’s attention a cold wind blew past me and drawn leaves floated away from the tree. The eyes disappeared and I turned around to see a blanket of snow quickly covering the grass behind me. “Mom! Dad! Hurry up! I want to go home!” I turned around the see a bell tower form on the roof of the building. It wasn’t a home it was a picture of a school.
As the first few snowflakes fell I ran for the door leaving the static pictures behind me. When I reached the threshold Jessica was standing there looking up at me. “You’re not my father!” She made to keep me from walking in and I could feel the blanket of snow coming up quickly. “I want my parents!” I expected her to stand there until I brought in her parents but instead she stepped aside I entered in time to close the drawn door.
“I want my parents! Where are my parents?!” Except for the crosshairs that were the window everything was just as white as it was when I walked through the snow. Jessica was there this time and yelling in my face. “I want my PARENTS!”
***
I remember when I was a kid setting my alarm to wake up for school. I’d religiously check it before I went to bed each night. Was the light that indicated the alarm was actually on lit? Did the clock say it was PM and did the alarm say it was set for AM? Was it set for the same time? It wasn’t that I grew up anal retentive, even today my room is so messy I can’t walk through it without stepping on something. Instead it was a habit my parents forced on me, like brushing my teeth or putting the toilet seat down after I was done. I was, and still am, a night owl. Waking up before nine o’clock is difficult sometimes.
It was the late night school nights that were the most interesting though. I’d crawl in at around ten or eleven for whatever reason, eyes dropping from fatigue, and fall asleep almost immediately. As I woke I dreamed the type of dreams I can remember shortly after waking up but that fade as the day progresses. Sometimes something extra special happened that made me remember or, on even rarer occasions, things that happened in real life filtered into my dream. Usually something simple, one time my father was going to tell me something really important only to beep and me for a few seconds. I’d usually hit the snooze button, turn over and try and go back to sleep, but the opportunity was lost.
As I woke up surrounded by blankets I found that I had had a half dream. “I want my PARENTS!” Jessica yelled to whoever would hear. As I turned over I could see that everyone else in the room was stock still watching the tantrum. The younger boy had buried his face in a woman’s stomach while a man held her shoulders. Johnny and Claire sat on a mattress and the P.E. teacher was leaning on a door frame. The janitor and the teacher who’d been reading to the two boys had been playing a game of cars in the corner which was temporarily on hold.
Jessica was standing on one of the other beds yelling at the top of her lungs directly into Mrs. Snowburn’s face. Instead of flinching or backing away from the little girl Mrs. Snowburn stood there and took the punishment. “WHERE ARE MY PARENTS?!” Even from where I sat I was tempted to cover my ears from the pain.
When Jessica took a breath it was Mrs. Snowburn’s turn to talk, which meant she had about a half a second to get a five minute dissertation in one why it was rude to yell like that and how her parents were coming as soon as they could. “Mrs. Snowburn, could you get her quieter? She’s bothering our son.” Unfortunately she was interrupted even before she got a chance to start. While at the time I thought Claire was going to be a problem I would later find out that, even though she cared for her son first of all, she really did care about others. This woman, on the other hand, I would wonder if she cared for her son. Half the time they were together it would look like she thought he was a bug that needed squashing and the other half she was using him as leverage to get what she wanted. “If we must stay in this place without so much as a space heater to keep us warm…”
The janitor was up in a second. “Now don’t go blaming the space heater, be happy you have it young lady.” She looked at him as though she was ready to hit him. “It ain’t my fault this building isn’t well insulated.”
With a scoff she turned her attention back to Mrs. Snowburn and the screaming Jessica. “I want my parents NOW!” She screamed into Mrs. Snowburn’s face. “NOW!” I was impressed at her ability to not flitch as her eardrums were accosted by Jessica’s shrill voice.
Another breath and another chance for Mrs. Snowburn to get in a word edgewise. “Well, is we can’t get more heat out of that space heater and, clearly, we’re not going to do anything about the insulation on this decrepit building I say we take back some of the blankets on that…” I watched her mouth form a word then decide on a different one. “…man.”
“I WANT MY MOMMY!”
“Harold, go take some blankets from him. I need to stay warm.” Harold nodded and began walking towards me.
I pulled them closer to me as a reflex but knew that, if he really tried, I was going to loose at least on layer if not all of them. “Gimme my parents NOW!” Jessica yelled and my head began to develop a dull throb that I knew would grow with continued abuse.
As Harold pulled blankets off of me the P.E. teacher stepped forward and took them from the man’s hands to place them back over me. “Excuse me! He has less need for those blankets than my wife does.” He turned back to the blankets on me and started stripping them away again. “Now. If you’ll excuse me.”
With one large hand the teacher places his palm across my chest hard enough that I could feel my lungs struggle to keep airflow. “You will not take these blankets from this man.” He stated simply and Harold backed up.
I tried to nod my thanks, but he was already back at his post by the door. Apparently he had guard duty or something; it made sense though I wasn’t sure why it was necessary. “You can’t make me stay here! You’re NOT my MOTHER!” Then it became clear.
Before Mrs. Snowburn could react Jessica jumped off her bed and ran for the door. If the P.E. teacher hadn’t been standing there she very probably would have disappeared into any of the dark corners in the school if she hadn’t gone outside. We all probably knew that, if she tried either, she’d probably freeze to death. Unfortunately, judging by Harold’s edging back towards my bed, not everyone seemed to care.
Mrs. Snowburn and I looked at each other. She was tired, I could see it in here eyes, it looked like someone had given her two black eyes and they were just starting to shine. Her hair was a mess and even her coat was beginning to wrinkle. “Jessica honey.” She tried with a smile, but it didn’t help, she buried herself into the P.E. teacher’s leg. Though she knew she wasn’t getting by him she didn’t want to be with her either.
“Jessica, want to hear a secret?” Everyone’s attention turned to me, even Harold stopped, but I wasn’t going to care. “If you come here I’ll let you in on a secret.”
Slowly she turned around a looked at me. I knew she was curious, what little girl wouldn’t be curious to learn a secret. “What is it?” She asked quietly around large tears.
I wiggled free of some of my tighter blankets and placed my hands out in the cold. I flinched at the cold but tried me best to keep my eyes on her. I had a feeling that if I took my eyes away from her for a second she would try and make an escape again. “Well, I can’t tell you while you’re way over there can I? If I tell you while you’re over there everyone will also learn the secret.” I motioned for her to come closer with my free hands. “Come here and I’ll tell you.”
As she slowly walked across the room I just barely glanced at the P.E. teacher to ensure he was ready for anything. Like I said, my degree was for high schoolers not grade school children. I had no idea what secret I was going to tell her and they should be ready for anything when I told her what I ‘knew.’
As she walked across the room Harold backed away from the bed enough to give her room, but he did something that I didn’t quite catch until it was too late. Their son was next to my bed before I could blink. “Tell me the secret! Don’t tell her, she’s dumb,” he said quickly. He didn’t even notice that he’d knocked Jessica over, who was now on the floor crying.
Everyone held their breath. Tired, scared, and cold made for a cranky and loud child. Add injured to the list and we didn’t even want to think of the retribution. Mrs. Snowburn was at her side in a second check to make sure nothing was hurt. Claire was also on her feet leaving Johnny on the bed alone. “I saw that!” she yelled Harold who looked at her like she was simply crazy for even thinking there was something to see.
Before Claire could explain herself Mrs. Snowburn was on her feet looming over the boy, who was still looking at me for the secret I had to share. “Dan!” I watched as his pupils got tiny and his back became rigid. “Explain yourself, why did you know Jessica over?” He turned around and backed into my bed, fearing what Mrs. Snowburn had in store.
She was angry, she’d just been given the chance to calm Jessica down and it was thwarted by Dan’s sudden interest in something that wasn’t even his business. “I-uh. I was interested.” Something happened that I couldn’t see because his back was turned to me, but Mrs. Snowburn turned on Harold. “I’m sorry.”
Harold stood high and his shoulders were held back. “Can I help you?”
Mrs. Snowburn pointed he finger at his chest and stepped just short of shoving a long nail into his chest. “You did something. You told him to do that or something.”
Again he threw back his shoulders and made a side long glance towards Claire. “I did nothing of the sort.” His grin was wicked. Whether or not Claire had seen something didn’t matter to him, he was free of guilt and that was that. He stepped past Mrs. Snowburn and grabbed Dan’s arm firmly and dragged him out of the room. With that they left the room. As the three of them went I watched as Harold leaned over and firmly told his son that he didn’t need to apologize to Mrs. Snowburn, he hadn’t don’t anything wrong. None of them had.
***
It turned out that Jessica got so scared from being knocked over that she didn’t care about my secret anymore. She hid herself in Mrs. Snowburn’s pants and cried herself to sleep. I was okay with it; it kept me from thinking of a secret. I mentioned the throbbing in my head to Sean, who seemed to appear only when everything was done. In response he grabbed a bottle of Tylenol from the nurses’ cabinet and gave them to me. Then he tapped the teacher’s shoulder as she and the janitor finished their card game. They left hand-in-hand and I could only guess what they were planning on doing. “I was they wouldn’t do that,” Mrs. Snowburn sighed as she sat and readjusted my pillow. “I’m just glad the kids don’t know why they disappear every once in a while, I’m not prepared to explain that to Jessica. Heck, I’m not prepared to be her mother."
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