He wakes up to the sound of steel striking steel. He lifts his head looking around trying to locate the source of the sound. All he can see is a green canopy that shows nothing but broken glimpses of blue sky above. He realizes he’s lying on a branch of a full-grown avocado tree. When he looks down, he sees a small outhouse and a pigpen. His view of the bamboo house, however, built on wood stilts that he knows is standing just to the left, flushed against a small hill, is blocked. From his vantage point, he also does not have a view of the smaller building that houses the kitchen. He does see white smoke curling up above his perch. Slowly, so he wouldn’t fall, he tries to maneuver closer to the tree’s main trunk, knowing that all he needed to do was climb down the tree, and he’d be home again.
Next time he wakes up, it’s to the sounds of glass breaking. Window panes make noticeable sounds when they break, like the screech of a hawk. The sound grates against his tympanic membranes. He’s a river frog sitting by the flowing water, screaming in pain. Then he’s a flamingo braving sulphur beds. As the sun beats down against his back, he realizes that his protective feathers have changed into crocodile skin, and he’s back at the river bank, mouth wide open, watching farmers in the rice paddies, some are stooped over planting seedlings, others are fanning themselves. It must be hot, but he doesn’t feel the sun’s rays. The farmers quiver, and suddenly they’re below him, and he feels his hummingbird wings beating, pushing down cool air, creating a blizzard. He falls towards water and becomes a giant snake; his powerful muscles push out, creating mini-tidal waves that lap over the dikes separating rice fields. A blinding light strikes him from above and the pain in his back—like a hot block of coal—intensifies. It’s waiting to be born, this searing heat. He opens his mouth to scream, but all he can manage is an alien bleating.
He wakes up again, this time, to Cecilia Bartoli coloring the air with her vibrato. He also hears the constant hum of some unidentifiable machinery. He hears forced air just above his head. Both his arms hurt, feeling as if they’ve been stung by a colony of bees.
Then he awakens in darkness.
“I’m blind,” he thinks to himself. But as his eyes adjust, he sees light in front of him, but it’s dim and undefined, especially at the edges. He tries to focus, but his eyes do not seem to be working properly. He wishes he knew what he was doing here, propped up against a metal wall, surrounded by trash bags. "I wish I knew what lay beyond the stink of rotting garbage.” The odor reminds him of the smell of the carcass of dogs he and his sisters once found; a humid, fetid smell that clings to the back of the throat that cannot be washed away.
He awakens under water. He thinks he’s drowning. He can’t breathe through the torrent over his face. He can’t breathe because of the pressure on his chest and constricted muscles binding his lungs. His throat has closed up. A thousand butterflies have lodged themselves in his nasal passages.
When he wakes up this time, he’s wandering the desert. The dry heat makes his skin crack, makes it feel like the skin of a Gila monster. The sand on his body makes every crevice itch. He scratches his belly, and the skin flakes off. He’s leaving a trail for scavengers to follow. The sun shines, relentlessly. He climbs up on a sand dune and scans the panorama. He’s searching for the beauty of dusk, for the ease that’s supposed to come with the end of day.
He wakes up to a voice whispering.
Finally, he wakes up to a forest of noise. Startled from his avocado tree perch, he loses grip and starts to fall. His arms reach out, trying to grab on, but he can’t hold onto anything more substantial than a twig. Strangely, he does not feel panicked. Strangely, even though there are only a few yards between him and the ground, he’s calm. He knows that he would bounce back up. As he runs out of twigs, branches, leaves and options, the world around him starts to thin. Even his outstretched hands are becoming transparent. He’s fading. But, just as his consciousness also fades away, he sees in the palm of his hand, a glimmer, almost like burning coal.
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