I fall asleep in the closet but I wake up in my bed. Before I open my eyes I know she will be there.

She is.

Standing at the end of the bed. Morning time. She is not a person. She is something else. I try not to cry. I start crying right away. Can’t stop. She is tall but her body is not a body. It is just a pile of things. It’s covered in a long shiny robe. Shiny from a million blue-gold flies crawling on her. Long gray hair covers most of her face. I look up at the ceiling and scream and scream and scream. I scream for mommy to come back. The ceiling turns pink and fuzzy I am screaming so hard.

Then she is standing over me looking down on me. Her face is awful pieces of animal. I remember her eyes. The same eyes as the white horse Brittany rides, the one that mom said I could pet but it bit my hand and I had to go to the hospital. The eyes are just hanging on the face not really looking at me. Flies crawl on them. I am shaking scared.

Please God please please make her go away.

She snorts and makes animal sounds. Her old barn smell makes me want to throw up. She reaches out and her fingers are made of crab legs all different sizes. No no no. I hate crabs more than anything. When we go to the beach, my dad always makes sure to pick a part of the beach with no crabs. He says he can tell when there are crabs because no no no she touches my face with her crab hands horrible horrible I close my eyes as tight as I can and scoot against the back of the bed.

The touching stops. I press my eyes shut tight.

Tweets and chirps. “Drink,” a happy little voice says.

I keep my eyes closed.

“Drink,” says the voice. It sounds fun and cartoony.

I open my eyes just a little bit. Oh a dozen bird heads have crawled out of a hole in her neck. They move in different ways. I found a dead baby bird once in our backyard. It had no skin and blue lumps for eyes. It is there with the other heads. “Drink!” it says in its funny parrot voice.

She holds up a big silver spoon in her crab hand. A greenish monkey hand holds up a glass bottle full of purple stuff and pours it out into the spoon. I can smell it. Grapey like the medicine mom gives me. Is it the same stuff? She holds the spoon up for me to drink.

Please God make this stop.

All the birds giggle.

Her claw pinky pokes my neck. It hurts. I open my mouth. Down goes the medicine.

I lie there with my eyes shut tight. I cry and stop crying and cry again. I know she’s there. The smell. The flies. The sound of animal breath. Why won’t she go away? Please go away go away go away. Please God make her go away.

Something’s slipped inside my eyes. I can see it even though they’re closed. Not a square. Not a triangle. A shape I don’t know the name of. Lots of shapes. Oh no my eyeballs fill up with little people like a Where’s Waldo book. There’s a million of them all doing different things moving around in an old city with castles and flags. They’re running through tunnels and climbing up towers. I can watch them all at once. Wow. There’s a baker and a knight and clown and a queen with lots of – they’re all dying! Cartoony blood pours everywhere and they’ve all got scared looks on their faces and the blood washes away and they’re all playing and smiling again.

The places and people change. I see stories. They happen all at once, a hundred stories, but I can watch them all at once. It’s different people crying and laughing and living and dying and doing all kinds of things. It’s like seeing ten movies all at once and it’s so much too much I open my eyes.

She is still there piled up on the edge of the bed. The Where’s Waldo people are still there, playing and laughing and bleeding and dying. The animal pieces of her face open up and – look! there’s another face inside. It’s a woman’s face or maybe a man’s face made of wet clay. It’s smooth and beautiful and I’m not scared at all looking at it and I feel like I’m floating. The clay changes and the face turns into other faces – an old man, a young man, a Chinese guy, a sad black guy, other guys, a cat. The shapes of the faces change but something in the eyes stays the same. Staring at me. Telling me something.

The face changes one more time. It is a woman’s face. Mother. Maybe very old maybe very young. Mother. The eyes say something clearly. Mother. I can feel my heart beating when it beats it says Mother. Mother. Mother. The eyes are sad so old and sad and kind so kind like they’re sorry for me like they wish they could help me. But the face is still and the lips are pressed together like she – Mother – is trying to hide that she is sad. Trying not to be sad. Trying to be strict. Because…

Because she is going to punish me. It is the same look mom gives me when I’ve been bad and she puts me in time out. The face is mom’s face but also a thousand other faces. They feel sorry for me.

Oh no. Oh no no no no no no no no. I scream and scream scream scream.