November

Issue 50

The child awoke from the dream screaming. For the fourth straight night, his mother went to him and found him burning with fever and drenched with sweat. She knelt beside his cot and removed his blanket. His left foot--where the sickness had entered his body–-was a deep red color and the skin there now seemed to be covered with little shiny scales.

“It was the dream again, mamma,” said Tano.

“Shhh…” said his mother. She stroked his hair and ran her fingers along his arm.

“The sand was hot. It was scratching under my belly. It got under my nails.”

“Shhh… It was only a dream.”

“Only they were claws, mamma–-not nails. And there was blood mixed in with the sand.”

“You were dreaming, Tano.  It wasn’t real.”

“And I was always hungry and it made me mad.”

“Everything is all right. I’m with you now. Don’t talk about it anymore,” she told him.

“Stay here, mamma. Stay next to me.”

And so for the fourth straight night, Maret lay on the cot beside her son until morning, silently praying that the town’s doctor would know how to cure her son of the dreaming sickness, and wondering if she had enough rupels to pay him.