mmmcmxxix

No Dreams Here

“But Pippa, you’re
frightening me!”

And then she was
awake, once again,

strapped to all of
the same monitors,

listening to the blips
and the bleeps and

the ticks and the
noises of paper

being spit, being
spewed, being

eaten, being
shredded and

being stacked
and stacked

until the crumple
folded in on itself,

flattening everything

else quite a bit, and 

then waiting for 

that moment when

what was then
piling above the

collapsed bundle
would be collapsed

atop of it as the next
ball of over-sized tickertape

became burdened
by its very maze

of roadmaps de
noting the glitches

and the ups and the
downs and the slow

rises and overly long
decrescendos. Esther

looked around at all
of this, but only for

a split second, until
the staff were on her

with a simultaneous
bombardment of

questions. As she
lay there, marvelously

able, somehow, to 

ignore the usual barrage

of questioning, she
closed her eyes again,

thought of Pippa, and
with every single part

of her that could still
pack a punch, she was

for the first time able
to make it back home,

to her Pippa. And did she

ever want back for good.

To join her lovely daughter.
Except. To relive that one

final game of hide-and-seek. 

The one that went the most 

awry.  She’d miscalculated.

The moment she realized

Pippa was gone, the second
she felt as if. She was scream

ing again. “But, Pippa! Pippaaa!!

Come back, Pippa! You’re scaring

the hell out of me!” She felt
herself uncontrollably re-enter

consciously into her waking
life, where she stayed, for

at least a bit longer than
the last time, until she

was able to ascertain
that it had been two weeks

and three days since the
staff had last seen her

conscious, had asked,
as always, in that bomb

ardment that was their
immediate questioning,

where one question inevitably
always stood out, more

clear than any of the others
being that were slung at

her all at once, “But Esther...
Esther, who’s Pippa?”

“Who is Pippa?”
“Esther?!”