Dare to Imagine

Dare to Imagine

Sara Bright is so real, her presence is everywhere. My son’s iPad is stacked with drawings of her. He’s written her name, intertwined in heart shapes in hundreds of drawings. He’s such a sensitive creature, a talented artist and he writes fabulous poetry and lyrical stories. Of course all the poems and stories are about Sara.

Yes, I’m sitting at my shabby chic whitewashed table, untouched cup of coffee growing tepid, while I rile through my son’s privacy.

‘Are thirteen-year-olds entitled to privacy?’ I ask the wilted flower next to my coffee cup, thank goodness it doesn’t answer me, but the question is rhetorical anyway.

Stevie is in the hospital again, and I have to go visit him. I shudder at the thought of how the pipes that poke in and out of his tender body affect me. I’m not the one they’re probing, but I might as well be.

“Steve, Steven…Stevie, what am I to do? How are we going to get past this rift that threatens to be the precipice of your life. I don’t want you to fall off the cliff, Steve. I want you to get well.” No tears flow, I’m all cried out.

The gray day reflects weak sunlight from the window pane, blinding my view of the iPad, so I move out of its glare, leaving my coffee, cold.

I settle into my worn couch to read my son’s words, to get a grip.

---

I was standing on the rock, the breeze playing with my hair. Looking at her, a halo of golden light, edged with emerald. Brilliant, iridescent green eyes. She looked exquisite.

“Jump, Stevie, jump!” And I did, into the abyss, from the rocks into the pool. My lights went out in a flash of blinding light.

Black matter with white pupils scratching my existence. Then, my mother’s face, hovering like a huge orb above my eyes.

“What were you thinking, Steve? What?” Pale-faced, swollen eyes stared back at me. My mother looked like a ghost.

But, I was stinking. Drowning. My fingers were numb.

“Steve! Good Lord, you’re awake.” And I was. I surfaced like a gaping fish, gills quivering, body trembling.

“What?” I offered, falling back on the white linen my mother preferred.

Claws snatched me up and it was days before I could breathe again.

---

I remembered the episode.

Jeez, it wasn’t an episode, it was a calamity. He was in hospital for a week before I could, safely, bring him home. I flick through all of the “calamities”, I read on.

---

There she was, smirk puckering ice-pink lips

The board skating rink was a glitter of silver concrete. It was hard.

. “Do the figure of eight, Steve. Do it.” I felt my cheeks flush and my heart contract. She was looking at me, at me…

Sara Bright. Jeez, what a name, but it suited her, she glowed.

Next thing I was spinning, up, up, up…

A perfect landing, my adrenaline spiked. One foot on the board, the other churning the concrete to sparks. I was flying…flying.

There was a crowd, but I only heard her voice, crystal tones, gorgeous!

It was the stone on my path that did it.

The concrete came to greet me, like an old enemy, and my lights dimmed.

---

Finally, I feel a tear squeeze. I have to get up, put on my jacket, I have to put on my jacket…it’s cold outside. It’s weird how the mundane things have to be done, even in times of crisis. I laugh, I can hear myself laugh.

“Jeez, there must be something wrong with me, how can I laugh at a time like this?”

I gather myself up and face the door, the door that leads to the hospital, the roomful of blinking monitors, the doctors shaking their heads over the bed where my son lies, the kind nurses with their sorrowful eyes.

I don’t know what I’m going to do, I really don’t. Even the doctors aren’t sure.

“What can be done to fix a delusional brain? What must I do to explain to my son that there’s no such person as Sara Bright? She’s a figment of his mind, and his mind is killing him.”

I’m so afraid…

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This story is in response to The Ink Well’s prompt for the month : - dare