The Child Outside of Heaven

The Boy Under the Stars

When I woke up again, I was back on my bed, like nothing had happened. My legs felt useless again, and tubes seemed to sprout out from various parts of my body. 

In fact, now with the coming light of dawn, it felt like my entire body was connected to the machine. I looked outside of my window, and I saw the sky starting to lighten up, clouds turning pink and blue, like cotton candy in the fair. 

There was no boy with a white streak of hair waiting for me to wake up.

I felt a lump form in my throat again. I felt incredibly sad and disappointed, and who wouldn't be in my situation at that time? 

Though a part of me constantly reminded my mind and senses that this was all a dream, it was nice to think that it was all really happening: that I did walk on my own, that I did feel actual grass between my toes; that I did see a boy who looked like me.

All of those sensations, rendered to a dream?

But then, before I completely blacked out—if that really did happen—the boy had whispered something. "Wait for me," he had said, I am sure of it. But how could I wait for him? I looked out the window longingly, watching the bushes and the leaves of the trees sway slightly from the wind outside. The window was closed and still I felt cold.

How could I wait for someone who turned out to be imaginary, a character from a dream?

I heard the ticking of the wall clock as I thought things through and wrestled with my emotions. It was almost six in the morning, and I felt more awake than ever. But had I even fallen asleep in the first place? Was I hallucinating?

I looked to my left, my eyes being the only one able to move, and found the mattress folded up against a far-away wall and my parents nowhere in sight. Slowly, my mind began to process that they were perhaps preparing for my birthday party, buying a cake I can't eat and calling relatives I can't remember.

The realization of that day's events almost bewildered me. I remembered my parents' plan of pulling the plug possibly hours after my birthday, and I felt even colder, so I wrapped myself to the neck with the thick blankets. But the cold remained, and it felt like it had sunk deeper into my bones.

I know I should be feeling angry. I know that I should be wanting to fight back, to argue that I can still live. Last night's events may just be a dream, but maybe there was a meaning to it all. What if it was the kind of dream that predicted the future? There was such a thing I have seen before, the opposite of de ja vu, where you see something happen in your dream, and then actually experience it happening days or months later. Perhaps it was that way for me. Yes, I may be hooked to a life support machine, but I had walked just that night. Perhaps I can still live.

That was the first time in a while that I ever thought of trying to live more. The boy who looked like me, the boy with a white streak of hair...he may be a character in my dream, and yet he changed me. I looked again at the window, but there was no one there.

I opened my mouth to speak, but no sound came out. I was all alone in this room, and in my misery I glanced at the plug behind the machine from the corner of my eye. It dawned to me that if I moved my body just a bit closer to the right side of the bed, I could pull off the plug myself. Once the plug is removed, I will eventually stop breathing and probably choke on my own blood.

I cannot completely turn my head anymore, but I strained to look at the plug, until my eyes began to hurt from the force. Maybe it would add more dramatic effect if I had done it myself. Either way, I was going to die by the end of the day. I would never see the stars and the moon again.