When Marko woke, it was the next day. The surgery had taken thirteen hours. It took another few hours for Marko to wake up fully. Marko was shocked: what could possibly be happening for thirteen hours? But the surgery was a success, they said, and Marko would be fine. After the initial pain of healing wore off, he should have no more headaches. “Should” was a word Marko distrusted. But then, as his mom always told him, there are never any guarantees.
In the days following that surgery, Marko recovered at home. There were times when his mother couldn’t be there with him, so his grandmother was there. His mom and his grandmother had settled on an agreement that his grandmother would drop the counselor assessment idea if his mom agreed never to leave Marko alone and to dispose of what was leftover of the dream bed. But Marko felt lonely with just his grandmother and sad at the loss of the dream bed. His grandmother doted on him every minute—could she get him this, could she get him that? A drink, something to eat, a sweater, a cold washcloth, some more pain medication, anything at all? Marko politely declined most of her offers, but he did accept a few. Not because he actually wanted anything, but because she seemed hurt that he didn’t need her help. In this way, she was more of a drain on Marko than a help. If he couldn’t be with his mom, he would have preferred to be alone. He would have preferred to be Emil.
To soothe himself, he watched baseball. When his grandma went to the bathroom, he took a break from baseball to read his mom’s diary. It was an account of one of her shamanic journeys in the dream bed.
I had a dream that I’d been shot through the middle of my body with a cannonball. It didn’t hurt but to ache and make me feel hollow. Walking down the street, I felt the wind blow right through me. It was the most unbearable feeling—the yearning to be whole was overpowering.
I went into a restaurant and ordered everything on the menu. I ate until I was sick but the hole was still there. I went into the restroom and masturbated until my genitals were numb but the hole was still there. I went to a bank and robbed it so that I had enough money to buy anything at all that I wanted. I went and bought a car and drove it around. Many people noticed me in my new car. But the hole was still there and the longing was worse than ever. I picked up a handsome man and had sex with him in the car. After that, a woman. Several men and women followed, but no matter how much sex I had, the hole remained.
I bought a beautiful dress and hid the hole, but when the wind blew hard enough, the dress billowed into my hollow.
I loved and was loved; the hole remained.
I made small miracles with my talents and was revered and admired; the hole remained.
Perhaps if I gave the rest of the money back, the hole would get a little smaller. But I couldn’t find the bank and was instead in a new and unfamiliar neighborhood. I gave the rest of the money to a person walking by who seemed homeless. The man was dirty and stinking with weary eyes and stained clothes. He received the money skeptically, asking me what I wanted in return. “Nothing at all,” I said and he smiled. His teeth were yellow and brown, his gums, gray. The man hugged me and I felt my hole widen against his coat. I pulled away and ran off.
Then I had an idea. I went to a library and checked out two hardcover novels of the right size and shape. Next I went to a hardware store and found what I needed: glue, bubble wrap, Styrofoam, tape. Carefully, I taped over the hole in my back, glued the two books together vertically, then aligned their spines with the broken cross sections of my backbone. I fortified that with a ballast of Styrofoam and then added tightly packed bubble wrap. Finally, I taped over the front of the hole, securing the whole contraption. After I walked out of the store, I realized I had not paid for anything. I thought about going back, but I didn’t have any money. So I kept walking, no longer feeling the wind blow through me.
I could feel the stories inside me and they made me cautiously hopeful. Cautious because the stories were too formulaic, like neat equations, as though anything in life were solved that way, as though anything were ever that ordered.
As I walked, the tape in the front began to bulge. I placed my hand on it and felt movement underneath. I pushed down and felt a twinge of pain inside, which meant I was whole again, or at least growing whole. This made me happy and so relieved but the pain kept getting worse and the bulge grew bigger. I sat down on the sidewalk and breathed deeply. I got up and squatted and pushed; something was coming out.
That’s when I woke up, but not into real life. I woke into another dream. I was back in the delivery room giving birth to Marko. Zach was there and the nurses, those wretched nurses. There I was, the younger me, so naive and unsuspecting. I watched the scene from the vantage of the ceiling and I noticed new details I never could have noticed then. One of the nurses was staring at Zach with a sinister look, her eyes darting back between my legs whenever he caught her staring. Zach was close to my face, bent over me, whispering something. I was screaming and drooling and growling. The nurse delivering Marko was elbow-deep inside me, her face flushed, her bangs pasted to her forehead with sweat.
“He’s crowning,” the nurse said and smiled, revealing strange, pointy teeth. The smile was clownish, almost maniacal, and her face was so dark red it was nearly purple. The baby slid into her arms. She frowned deeply and peered closely at the baby. She looked at the other nurse, who was also frowning at the baby. Zach, positioned at the foot of the table between my legs now, did not frown, nor did he look happy. His expression was frozen in a state of shock and awe. I was speaking, telling them I was hungry, asking after the baby. The two nurses got busy separating him from my body. They cleaned him carefully and swaddled him. They were too quiet and did not answer my questions. I started to raise my voice. The nurse walked toward the door with Marko. I screamed at her. She turned around and said, “He has a hole in his back.”
I woke up. The inside of the dream bed was damp. I’d been sweating. I got out and rubbed the spot on my back, which was actually itching. It wasn’t burning or feeling slimy like usual; it was itching deep below the surface where I could never reach. The room was dark and cold. I shivered and heard my teeth clatter. I got off the floor and took off my damp clothes. Through the window, the dreary winter morning was just breaking. Images from my dream stayed with me as I dressed in dry clothes and went to the living room to start my morning yoga. The dream had seemed too long for only one session in the dream bed. The end, where Marko was being born, had seemed different than it was in reality—spooky. The pointy teeth and the sinister look. Then, as I was warming up with spinal flexes, I realized I had woken up before the nurse gave me Marko to hold. For some reason, this bothered me and I had to go check on Marko in his bed.
He was there, sound asleep, breathing rhythmically in the dark. I sat beside him and watched him, the side of his face so peaceful just then. I wondered what he was dreaming about and hoped it was a good dream. Then it hit me: did Marko dream about walking like I sometimes dreamed of being in a wheelchair? Did he dream about being whole when I dreamed about having a hole through the middle of my body? The spot deep down itched again and I scratched at the surface far above it, sating it not at all.