"There is no such thing as a bog child."
But my mind pushes, relentlessly holding on to logic,
to fact. A brain knows no such thing as hope, or
reassurance. Those come from the heart.

"There are such things as bog children."
This I know, the story was based upon events that had happened
real-time about 27 years ago in a foreign land of green
and turquoise.

"But there's no bog around here..."
And so the bump I heard in the navy-dark night was not
a dwarfish thing crawling from the dirt of another time...
it was only that: a bump in the night.

"Only there is a bog. In delta. Don't you remember? That time there was a fire there
and the smoke blew in on the wind, like butterflies with wings of lead."
In this instant I wish I'd left the ending for the true-morning.
For a time with light and more comfort then a chilly bed and a song in my ears.

"It's a nouveau show, and the stars are gone...
Elevator, elevator...

Take me home."

I find my bravery, and sit up. Light spills from the screen of my MP3, and I squint into the dim blueness, trying to see. Searching for leather faced kids.

The light coming in from the crack under the door shifts, and my vision blurs.

I imagine something lurking there, ready to drag me into vintage mud littered with dead dreams and wisps of love.

The dark is sly. It moves like water nudged by the wind, moving across my eyes and

leaving me unsure. Like a cloudy day, my vision is clear only for a moment, because soon the haze moves back and rekindles the sparks of fright.

I sit up a bit more, and my feet dangle over the edge of the bed. My legs are nearly bare, the paleness gleams. A breeze blows, real or imagined, and it spooks me. But I grit my teeth and swallow my fear, rewind the track and gingerly stand.

Fingers stretched out, and toes pointed. Like I'm blind, I reach.

Like I'm dancing, I reach. I feel the light switch. Flick it on.

And my fairy tale nightmare slips away.

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I finish writing pages 1-3, and get up off the bed again. My legs feel heavy. I am no longer dancing as I move back to the light and switch it off.

But when the darkness reappears and I've slid under the covers, it again feels like another time.

Everything is breathing but my breath is gone. The night is like an unwanted caress, and I wish sleep could beckon more convincingly. I wish the sandman would drag me, kicking and screaming into dreamland. Instead, I turn on the TV. The light is too bright for my eyes, and the room looks eerie with most of it in shadow. But I take no notice and reach for my pen...images of fine china dolls and my hand moving across the page lingering in my mind even as I set the paper aside and try again...