The sun is warm and beckoning.
It speaks to me of summer days and lemonade.
But, I can’t listen.
I am tightly curled up in the small place that I recognize as mine.
I’m not sure where it is or where I am.
All I know is that I am trapped and lost.
I feel the ice freezing over above me.
I am cold and brittle.. just like the ice.
He comes to me in the dark .
He tries to hold me, to comfort me
But, I can’t allow him to touch me
Because he might freeze here right beside me.
It has been a long time now.. or maybe just a few minutes.
It seems like years that I have been lost inside this gray tomb.
He tells me to go and visit my friends and my family.
He doesn’t know that I can’t do that
Because I have forgotten who they are.
Nothing seems real in this frozen existence.
I don’t know who I am or who I was
Or even who I will become.
He speaks to me softly.
He screams in my ear.
He pleads with me to get up and get dressed.
He just doesn’t understand
That the person he thinks I am
Simply does not exist anymore.
She had become a mollusk
And she lives in her shell far down
Below the frozen sea.
I cannot speak because I no longer have a mouth.
I cannot see because I no longer have eyes.
He says it is time for me to get up
There is no time here.
A mollusk doesn’t have to get up
She can stay safely here in her shell.
Has time passed up there in his world?
I suppose it has.
I hear other voices now.
I recognize them in the far reaches
Of my mollusk mind.
They are the voices of my children
They are speaking to me.
I push them away when they try to hold me.
I don’t want them to be trapped in my shell with me.
He carries me somewhere
I can feel the warmth of his body close to mine
And I struggle to get away
I don’t want him to melt the ice
Or to break my fragile shell.
There are strange voices around me now
They are trying to pry me out of my shell.
I fight them as long as I can
Without arms, blind without eyes.
I fight until the icy darkness around me
Engulfs me and I drown in my shell.
I feel myself floating in the water
It’s getting warmer now and I know
That I am no longer curled up in my shell
I am drifting upward to the surface
I am terrified and afraid that without my shell
I am easy prey to the predators who seek
To harm my broken and beaten soul.
Upwards I drift into the warm light above me.
I discover that I have eyes.
I open them and I am floating
On a white cloud now.
I am tethered to the cloud with lines and tubes
And there is a curious beeping sound nearby.
I see familiar faces around me.
He bends down and holds me tight.
Suddenly the mollusk starts to cry
She cries until there are no more salty tears
Left in her sea.
And, she holds him close with
Newfound arms.
“Welcome home baby” he says.
Home.
About the Creator
Linda Paul
For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to be a writer. I tend to see life as a series of snapshots and magical moments. My six children are grown now, I am retired, and I would dearly love to pursue my love of the written word.
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