Page 35 - Demo

Allegra’s Dream
Kelsey Schae ein
I was sick for a long while. Now, I am not. It is hard to remember—to imag- ine even—when I was. I cannot see myself as sick, or as a survivor.
Last night I dreamed of a wooden playhouse, too tall to jump o from the sides. There were four exits: ramps, steps, ropes, and the like. Each way was guarded by crawling, wriggling things. Beatles, like acorns, their glossy wings clicking as they moved, eclipsed the wood in thick patches, but never veering from the eastern wall. The western wall was threaded pale with webbing- though the spiders themselves never left the corners. In the center, caught was... was it a rat? A squirrel? A tuft of brown and graying pink, where pale, limbless larvae scratched and squirmed. No path was clear to me.
There was a child ... a girl ... she didn’t seem to notice them. She slid away, and she was free. She and other children ... they called me down, yet I could not cross.
The fourth side had looked completely clean, so I knew there must be something terri- ble hiding underneath.
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