Weightless

I was floating.  Not suspended in midair or soaring amongst clouds but just weightless.  Rotating my head carefully, for fear of spoiling this feeling, I tried to orient myself.  I couldn’t seem to see anything underneath me nor above me.  It reminded me of the endless white rooms that people in commercials seem to find themselves in.  The most remarkable thing about my situation was that for the first time since I received that call, I felt content.  I could still feel the constant pull of the never-ending cycle of the orphanage- cooking, cleaning, spending time with the kids.  But somehow I knew that all those things didn’t really matter and I could easily push the urge to do something to the back of my mind.  That other thing, the thing that I always shied away from delving into, had mysteriously seemed to be gone too. 

So I floated. 

All of a sudden, a bundle dropped out of the space above me and landed lightly in my arms.  At first it was a welcome change in this white room but in the next second, I was dropping.  There was no ground to break my fall but I almost would have welcomed the impact of the ground compared to this constant feeling of falling.  My insides felt like they had been ripped out of me with the speed at which we, the bundle and I, whooshed downwards.  I was made up of the bare minimum.  Just enough to grasp the bundle like it was going to save me from falling apart completely. 

At this point, the falling sensation had become bearable to the point that I could ignore the fact that it was even happening.  Somewhat righting myself, I curiously examined the bundle.  Unable to discern anything from the cloth wrapping around it, I began to unwrap the folds of the baby blue blanket. While the length of unwrapped cloth grew longer and longer, the bundle shrunk not a centimeter.  Resigning to the mystery of the bundle, I heard the ring of a telephone.  Unable to find a cellphone or handset anywhere in sight, I could do nothing but wait for the ringing to stop. 

The ringing continued until I opened my eyes to the harsh fluorescent lights of a hospital room.  The ringing appeared to be closer to my right ear so I reached over with my right hand and brought the source of the noise to my face.  The screen glowed “Unknown calling”.  I flipped the phone open and answered:

“Hello?”

“Hi, I missed a call from this number earlier.  Who is this?

“This is Christophe Moreau. I’m sorry, who is this?”

silence.

“Chris?  This is Rosie.  You’re about five years late if you want to meet your son.”
But then the hospital began to warp and twist.  The cell phone dissolved in my hands and the ergonomic pillow under my head began to feel remarkably like a crushed up cardboard box.  The fluorescent lights dimmed and became the night sky that I had fallen asleep under- I passed out again before I could rearrange whatever piece of alleyway junk was creating the most uncomfortable cushion against the hard concrete.