Fragments

ss: The Sandman

I only remember collecting stardust on mornings warm enough for Roscoe, my basset hound, to bask in front of the glass door leading from the living room to the backyard. Mom called them eye boogers and found my small jar of stardust revolting. When I was four, Dad told me stardust were good-dream seeds planted by the Sandman. I asked what the Sandman looked like, and Dad said, "He looks different to everybody."

"How will I know it's him?" I asked.

"Some things you just know."

When I was eight, Dad warned me to be careful because, "The Sandman likes to steal his dreams back."

"Doesn't he have his own?" I asked Dad.

He shook his head gravely. "He doesn't know how to dream." Then, he whispered, "Always be ready for the worst," before whisking me off my feet and making the spinning world even more topsy-turvy.

Mom didn't like Dad's tales. "Don't say anything about the Sandman tonight. You'll give her nightmares," she'd scold him before opening my squeaky bedroom door and handing me a mug of microwaved milk. I noticed she'd started changing into her lavender nurse clothes instead of her usual sweatpants and t-shirts. I downed the milk in five gulps while Dad read a chapter of Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. Mom rubbed my back until I fell asleep. I was nine then.

Mom and Dad celebrated my tenth birthday a day early because Mom had to work a double shift. She made all my favorites for dinner‒ham, pancakes, and sweet potatoes‒and Dad bought a small, chocolate Costco cake spelling D-A-I-S-Y out in white buttercream cursive. As Dad presented the cake to me, frosting swiped against his baggy, green polo. "Oops," he said, laughing and mashing the frosting further into the fabric.

Mom, still in her day clothes, tutted, and closed the curtains. Dad lit the candles after Mom frantically switched off the kitchen lights. "Quick! Make ten wishes!" Mom cried as she rapidly took pictures on her silver camera. I only had time to wish for a clock radio, for Wendy to move back, for Alex Jeong to like me back, for me to get into Harvard Law School when the time came, and, when I felt Roscoe puttering around my feet, for him to live forever.

The Sandman was the first to wish me a Happy Double-Digits Day. I'd never seen him in my dreams before, but just as Dad had said, I knew instantly it was the Sandman. I'd seen his shadow looming over me as I buried my pirate's loot in crab's nests on Daisy Beach. I couldn't believe he and I were the same age, and I remember exclaiming, "You're a kid too!" The Sandman only grinned, and that's when I knew he'd be the best friend the world would never I had.

The Sandman looked like one of the china dolls in our glass buffet in the dining room. Careful, inky-dark curls sprouted from a powdery-white scalp. His features were delicate, a pebble-like nose and thin eyebrows so black and shiny they looked painted on with oil. If not for his mouth, stretched from bony cheek to bony cheek, braying, I would've written him off as a baby, certainly not best-friend material. The Sandman looked as comfy as a cloud in his silky white pajama shirt and matching bottoms. I didn't notice the intricacies in his pajama set until much later. Someone had sewn sloping lines into the silk, building railway systems and mountain ranges.

I wiped the sand off my hands with my pink tanktop and introduced myself. "I'm Daisy. Should I just call you Sandman?" He hesitated before shaking his head. "No? What's your name?"

He reached into his potato-sack satchel, pulled out a pinch of gold stardust and tilted his head to the side, as if to ask, "Can I sprinkle this into your eyes?"

I remembered Dad's warning, and though I didn't think the Sandman would steal my dreams, I found myself shaking my head. I cupped my hands and offered them to him, and he rubbed the stardust off his fingers into my palms. I swabbed the stardust off with my index finger and swept the gritty particles along the corners of my eyes. It was as if someone had swiftly yanked out my nightlight and turned off the moon before dropping me into whitespace. The Sandman sat next to me, our criss-crossed knees touching. He reached out into the blank air and wrote something with his finger. Shiny grey letters appeared. A-N-D-R-E-W.