The young woman wore a white plastic hair clip dangling crookedly, buried between her long honey-blond hair hunks. The hair draped her thin shoulders halfway down her back. Her poise was as if standing at attention, with her back turned to the bodega entrance. The woman seemed to be on this block for a purpose, a sentinel patiently waiting for her orders from elsewhere.
                    As I tried to pass, she suddenly spun to face me.
          “You must come with me,” she said, breathless. “Today is your day.”
          “My day?”
          She stared at me with oval eyes, the cast of emeralds. Her skin was tan. My first guess was she was from the Middle East, but also vaguely French, Italian, and Rom. Perhaps a pied-noir; I read books on the Algerian War. First, a savage war of peace, then her family was exiled.
          You could see the planet in her face, the alluring geography of curving full lips, the range of her narrow nose sloping toward them, and the sunny seashore tones of her smooth skin.
          She dressed from another time. A gray Cashmere sweater buttoned over a bleached Peter Pan collared blouse, a shapeless black knee-length skirt, heavy nylon stockings, and black kitten heels with wide satin bows.
          “Yes,” she said, earnest yet courteous. “You must come with me.”
          ​I became anxious. “I am sorry, but I must get home.”
          The young woman became adamant, her voice rising. “No. You don’t understand. Today is your day.”
          She bit her lip. “Please.”
          “Then what day is today?
          She grasped my hand. Her fingers were cold.
          A whisper:
          “This is your day.”
          I then understood what she meant.
          ​Emeralds sparkled.

​Frantically I’m searching everywhere
throughout this giant sprawling house
dark and shadowy, stuffy, no windows
no sunlight so many rooms
narrow up and down corridors

Trying out for the Senior Class Play’s romantic lead opposite my girl but coming in second to the handsome hunky Everett. Then watching him romancing her on-stage from backstage for weeks.

​People sprawled everywhere
sleeping sitting standing staring leaning
against walls and closet doors talking in whispers
but no one notices me as I search for you
through the rooms and corridors

​I search everywhere like checking
the same pocket 100 times for a missing key
so damn dark, strange faces and masks
no one talks to me acknowledges me
as if I’m a ghost

​Where have you gone my love
I’m lost, feeling more and more hopeless
checking every corner behind every curtain
on every staircase and chair
in the kitchen, closets, and bathrooms

But perhaps you’ve left without me?
My time with you was up I always knew . . .
no, no, I’ll go round again
you have to be here somewhere
you have to be

On the top floor of the museum at night, everything below in flames. But it's cool here, dark and quiet. The floors and walls are black marble veined with pale grey and yellow; inset in alcoves are various allegorical or alchemical figures and I touch each one lightly, hoping to understand the sequence. China vases my own height, thick with dust. A few windows high up let in a little starlight. Slowly I become aware of a confused roaring and I realise it's the fire downstairs. I start to panic and make for the stairs but as I turn a corner to the stairwell it's suddenly deafening and the floor is starting to buckle. I grab the bannister and the top step gives way – through my mind as I fall it flashes that no one will ever see these vases and figures again. I come to, briefly, but it's chaotic, running through a kind of formal garden with high hedges, stumbling over sudden shifts of level, there's no view, no horizon, I'm dodging through other people now who are all ignoring the building in flames behind us. I dash through a topiary arch and on the other side is a beach. At last it is cool again, salt air and the roaring of the flames is now a roar of wind in my ears, slow crunch of waves on the hard grey sand. I walk along the water's edge, just taking it all in, the emptiness, till on a rocky outcrop up ahead I notice there's a ruined house. At least a part of the roof is still there, though the doors and windows are missing. I should feel afraid but I don't, I walk in, looking from one mossy room to another. In an open chamber overlooking the sea I find a man at a desk, bearded but maybe not really older than me, a mess of bird's nest in his hair, scribbling fitfully in a large book. I peer over his shoulder and recognise scraps of old Cornish but no pattern, I think he's trying to catch the words in the air and I know there's a poem moving around there, angular and modern, a kind of bauhaus cut-up; he's closer to it than I will ever be.​

​Alex has to be at school by 7:15 to catch the bus for the fieldtrip. He tells me this at
7:12. I have no contact numbers for the other mothers at this school, so I cannot call for help,
confirmation, advice nor comfort. We go. I am dressed in Wonder Woman pajama pants and a
Star Wars t-shirt, my hair wrapped around a large pink curler in a hopeful effort to tame the
relentless cowlick that sculpts my bangs into angular chaos. Alex dubs my curler-do Queen
Amidala hair. We run out the door, toothbrushing finished in perfect rhythm of our paces,
granola bar and two apples tossed and zipped into the pack in between our long-legged lunging
steps. We are practiced in the art of grooming, hygiene and self-care on the run. Alex is 14
now, sporting a Clark Gable mustache, rumpled Khakis and a Logo’ d polo short, mostly
compliant with the Catholic school uniform policy. My red white and blue pants with Marvel’s
latest version of Wonder Woman ‘s face is not compliant with the school’s uniform policy. I
hope he remembered socks. We are not Catholic. We live one block from the small class-size
private middle school, but there is construction along the way. I am blocked, tick tock it is
7:13. I assess the leap from where we are to the truck that has caused the jam up – it’s about a
15-foot gap, I am sure of this distance, simple physics. If I can make that jump, we can move
around this barrier and Alex will not be that one kid left behind when the bus departs. I don’t
even know about a fieldtrip, maybe today is when they go to the beach? I grab Alex, leap and
my left arm catches the beam of the truck no, this is a beam on the building. It is a dream after
all, plot gaps are embraced, move on. The beam loosens and begins to sag to the ground,
slowly, gently like a benevolent heavenly arm. I hang on to Alex, it is not an effort, he is not a
burden. I got this I think to myself. We will make it. It is only 7:14. Two officers arrive, arrest
me. They are young, I judge them, they are about the age of my older son. They seem amused
by this mom who calmly shares her tale… I explain to them … my son tells me he must be at
school you see, in 3 minutes you see, there was construction you see… They let me go. I am the
mother of boys, there is something ancient in that distinction, like a secret handshake but
touch no longer even needed. Their eyes could not resist my Amidala curler. As I leave, and
deliver my son to the school yard, 7:15, I am a batter safely across the base. The herd of
children who have all arrived before us, on time, perfectly prepared by their better than I am
parents turn to look at me. The girls move their heads together, cover their mouths, snicker. I
straighten to my full 5’8”. I fill myself with a deep breath, ground myself – be this self that I am,
I just traversed space and time. An invisible but palpable burst moves out from me in
concentric circles and pressed into them. Something shifts, I see it, their shoulders straighten,
they are now awed, and I hear them “Oh, so THAT’s how to dress if I want to be authentic”. I
know curlers and rumpled pjs are in their future. Yeah, it’s the pants that convinced them, I
think to myself, and snicker a bit. Okay, I know I made that part up even in this dream world but
this REM avatar controls the script.

I walk home, a new way I did not know was there before, this way is much more
peaceful, it is along an ocean. This way is dark, muddy, but not mud like we have here in
Appalachia, not the clay-red slippery mud but black gritty mud, volcanic grit, the kind of soil
where your step distills water from earth, leaves a foot-print shaped puddle. I do not question
all this going on, just walk. And for all the beauty this ocean front land between me and my son
is empty, eerily empty except for me and 50 or so men, dressed like ancient sea-dogs, blue
jackets, caps, beards whose eyes never stray from their task. They are solemn, they are moving
like a line of knotted rope, heavy beams heaved on their able shoulders, they are hoisting boats
from the water, dragging them inland, all the boats – some small, some huge out of the water
and onto the shore. There are no boats in the water. Not one boat remains in the water. I
recognize this place, I am in Marblehead, I know this rocky shore like I know the creek bed of
where I live now. I grew up near creeks, not oceans. We caught crawdads, not lobster. I hear
the somber men, distinctly New England accented say “Gonna be like a bomb, this one, gonna
lay us all awaste”. I wonder if anyone could imagine Marblehead waters with no boats, nothing
as far as the eyes can see. I cannot believe I can imagine this so vividly. I want to erase it,
rumble the page of my dream script and toss it into the waste basket and then cover it with
dirt, let the worms reclaim it. I have been to many harbors, I know some men can forecast
storm warnings from the smell of salted air. My maw maw could smell rain coming and would
take down the laundry from the line. We would sit inside her house by the fire and sip coffee
turned sweet and creamy with a can of Carnation Evaporated Milk from her panty. We would
sip and listen to the thunder, fold sheets, we were safe in her home. We used to know how to
divine danger, I think to myself. Back in this dream world, I look down at the ground, I have
ruined my shoes in this black muck. I inventory Alex’s backpack in my mind’s eye, comforted
that he has a rain poncho in the outside pocket, folded, newly purchased, still in its plastic
protective cover.
I am awake now, still in the dream but awake. Awake in the dream. I can smell the
storm on the edge of the ocean, it is so large the scent of it fills me like a too fast swig of warm
carbonated pop, I know now what is to come. I think of the school – all the children there,
brought in early, delivered into the hands of the teachers and the principle, the building itself
and all the illusion of safe harbor that has come to represent. I remember walking my son into
pre-school and kindergarten, holding his hand, acting calm for his sake but filled with worry,
determined to sniff out any threat to this brown eyed wild child, could he be safe without me? I
confess at times I sent him in with a spy camera – I did and I’m not ashamed to say it. It cost me
$20 on Amazon, it looked like an iPod mini, blue and innocent looking. But now, how did it
come to this? I am socialized to surrender him to them each day into a building of mostly
strangers. I am complacently oblivious to all smells.

I am suddenly aware that the school knows about this approaching storm, must know
about the impending arm of annihilation reaching towards them, moments away and yet still
acting as if it is a day like any day. Will the bus leave on time? Will that be how it all ends?
What else would one do in the face of inevitable extinction? My only thought is I have to get
home. My thought should be “I have to get my son.”
My alarm is set to NPR. It is 5:45. Instead of music, I am awaked to Ira Glass’s voice. He
is telling a story, his guest says… I am hugging the edge of the eddy. Fatality of man against
breaking waters’ awesome terror…. I slowly slide the two long bobby pins from the curler
hopefully successful in forcing my cowlick into compliance and shake the bangs into place. My
husband delivers me a cup of coffee.

Dr. Rondalyn Whitney is an associate professor/researcher at WVU SOM. Her scholarship
narrates the lived experience of healing, spanning scholarly journals, professional texts and
creative works including the poem Amazing Grace (in The Healer’s Burden); essay Spontaneous
Abortion (in Northern Appalachian Review), Are you The Wife (in Intima). holds an advanced
certificate in Narrative Medicine from Columbia University.