7

The day started with whiteness. My father sat next to me and held my hand. Women with crisp, white uniforms and blue gloves filed in and out of the hall. Arlen returned from the restroom and took up my other hand.

“Facilities were nice. Very clean,” he said. He looked at me and smiled, “Oh Sile. Things will be alright. Hey,” he took my face in his hands, “things will be fine.”

“Sile N’Bhroin!” A clean nurse looked through me as I stood up to claim my name. Arlen and my father came up behind me. “Follow me,” she said. I turned to receive a kiss from my father and a bear hug from my brother. Then I followed the nurse, careful not to step on her white, spotless shoes.

The nurse led me to a generic operating room and told me to sit in a black chair. I waited. 24 minutes later, Dr. Brunswick entered my room. “Hello Ms. N’Bhroin. Please lie back.” The chair extended itself out and I rested my head on the back. After a sharp prick on the top of my hand, my dream shifted. The operating room turned bright yellow and Dr. Brunswick’s gray beard turned jet black.

My family walked in my room, took one look at me, and started acting funny. My father started crying while Arlen turned toward the doctor and began shouting at him. I couldn’t hear them. I wondered why Arlen shouted at my doctor. He didn’t do anything wrong. Then I noticed my brother’s usually dirty blond hair now looked sunshine yellow and his naturally gray eyes looked bright blue to me. All the colors I had seen before the operation seemed more vivid now.

Suddenly, the colors started to fade while Arlen’s shouts and my father’s sobs grew louder.

“...Easy procedure... What will she do...” I made out some of when Arlen was saying; my father’s chokes were drowning everything else out.

As the sounds became more distinct and the colors turned slowly to black, I woke up, still hearing Arlen’s angry remarks in my brain. My eyes opened and adjusted to the light.

Immediately I wanted to call Arlen and my father. My dream had reminded me of my life before the operation. What started as a epilepsy-correctional operation, turned into a life changing alteration that lost me the two people I cared most for in the world.

But then I wondered if my wish had also worked on Arlen and my father. Perhaps the jolly man that granted my wish had not just changed me, but had taken me back to the time before the bullet pierced my father's heart or before the rope tightened around Arlen’s young neck. I picked up my phone and dialed the number I hadn’t used in almost 50 years.

It rang.

“Hello?”

“Arlen?”

“Sile? Is that you?!”

I smiled and closed my eyes, allowing myself to remember the days before darkness consumed me and my poor family.