Little Girl in my Dreams: This Wasn't Happening

By Javier Estrada

Abandoned by the world at a young age, he had a perfect plan to commit suicide, a plan that failed and sent him into a deep coma, where he met his little girl, between Sarah, the caretaker at his dying bed and this little girl, he was brought back to life with a whole new perspective, but! Was this real? An extraordinary and compelling story tha

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stratton Press
• Release date: Mar 18, 2020
• ISBN: 9781643459950

Book preview

Prologue

I remember the pain in my hand as my mother was holding me by my wrist as we were walking to school. This time was different; I thought she must had been in a hurry for her to walk so fast, but I had no right to ask. I had to keep up without complaining. It had been a rainy day, but the rain had ceased, and deposits of water remained along the sidewalks. I was wearing my almost-new tennis shoes, and I knew she would get upset if I got them wet. This was definitely not the way to school, and I was getting tired of her constant pulling on my hand.

Finally, we arrived at this big building, and I was able to rest my feet for a moment. I was asked to sit in a big shiny bench behind the desk of the old man who was asking my mother many questions. I had imagined it was about me, but I was too young to understand. I noticed that my shoes had gotten a little wet and muddy, and I was trying to clean them with my hand before my mother would notice them when I got interrupted by the man.

How old are you? he asked, leaning his head toward one side while looking straight at me.

He will be five in September, my mother replied.

He gave her this ugly look, removing his thick glasses and leaning toward me. He asked if I was hungry. I didn’t answer as I looked to my mother for approval, but she never looked at me. Does he talk at all? the man asked my mother. Is he a paper boy? I never knew what he meant by that, but in my mind, it was to be recorded forever. With a long face and messy white hair, he looked like the person you wouldn’t want to deal with.

After a long time, another man came to get me and took me to this room to take my picture. Stand straight and look at me, the man commanded. Do not smile!

Through the small window above my head, I saw my mother walk away, leaving me behind. I couldn’t understand that this was the last time I would see my mother.

After taking my picture, I was taken to the doctor’s room where I was asked to sit on a bed covered with white paper. Without asking, the man untied my shoes and put them in a box with big red letters. This is your box, he said. Everything that belongs to you will be put in this box.

I kept looking around to see if my mother was nearby, thinking maybe she needed to go somewhere before returning for me, but time went by, and she never returned. I felt terrified of being alone in a place I wasn’t familiar with.

A man dressed in white took me to a big room where other children kept looking at me. The room was filled with neatly made beds one after the next; every bed had a drawer in front made of aluminum with two doors on top and three drawers at the bottom. The man took my picture out of the folder he had with him and taped it in one of the lockers and said, This is your bed, and this is your locker. He opened the locker and put the box with big red letters inside and said, If anyone asks you where you are from, you say from room Z, understand? Memorize this letter and put it in your head so you won’t be lost.

As the days went by, I knew my mother wasn’t coming for me. I cried so many nights for a long time waiting for her return, but she never did.

After a few days, the man with the long face came over and told me to get all my things and put them in the box with big red letters. For a moment, I thought my mother had returned to get me, only to find out that I was going to be taken to an orphanage called Indian School along with other kids, where I would spend the next ten years of my life.

Early the next morning and after breakfast, I was boarding a big green bus along with most of the kids from room Z. This bus was going to take us to our new home, we were told. I heard some of the kids whispering to one another that we were going to be put up for sale. How I wanted to be big and strong to be able to kill everyone around me and run as fast as I could to free myself, but I was small and weak. No one was going to buy me because I was deformed from the inside out, I thought.

The day turned into the night, and with only a quick stop, they bought us sandwiches and sodas that we ate at a rest stop in the middle of nowhere.

The next morning, we were awakened by the driver to let us know we had arrived. From the bus window, I saw two big buildings almost identical and made of dark dirty bricks; I could see the chimney structures on the rooftop. The entrance was fenced, and from a small room next to the gate, a man came out to open the entrance for the bus to get in.

We are here, the driver said. Grab your box and exit slowly, and stand next to the bus until they call your name.

I grabbed my box with big red letters, and as I was getting off, my name was called by two ladies standing next to the bus door. I knew then that I was different.

So you are the one who doesn’t talk, one of them said. We will make you talk.

I was taken to a room with a door and no windows. Welcome to your new home, a man sitting behind an old desk said. You are to do only what we ask you to do. You no longer have a mother or a father. We are your mother and father. I know you don’t like to talk, but if I ask you to talk, you talk; if I ask you to eat, you eat; and if I ask you to run, you run. Understood?

Little did he know that I was planning to kill him and everyone else in here. I was forced to attend school, wash my own clothes, and keep the place clean.

The snow days came and went, and I never heard about my mother. I learned to hate her as much as I loved her. I had no choice in life other than to listen and follow the rules. At eleven years old, I had broken the record of the most attempts to run away, only to be caught and sent to isolation where I invented my own dreams. In my mind, I had created the perfect mother who adored me, the one who never could abandon me here.

At fifteen, I had the right to disappear from this world. If I could only wait for a couple of more years, I was going to be able to fulfill my dream of being no more and be gone forever, never to return.

It was the month of September when I was called by one of the officers to report to the office. I was released with a bus ticket and a bank card good for five hundred dollars.

You can use this ticket in a bus station to go anywhere you want to go, the man said. And this card is good as money. Don’t spend it all in one place. He said the last bit in a sarcastic way.

I walked away with the same hate I had when I arrived. Just like my mother did ten years before, I never turned around to say goodbye. The same box with big red letters was my only possession, and I did not desire more. I put the ticket given to me inside the box and tossed it across the fence.

This I give you, Mother—this box full of memories I was forced to have. I love you. I always had.

Sarah

Your heart rate is a little faster today, Sarah said. "Are you playing tricks on me again?" There was concern in her voice, but what struck me was her calmness.

I had been bound to this bed, unable to move a muscle in my body. No signs remained of the powerful me, the one in control, the one with the perfect plan that would be copied by many. I had made a decision to end it all, and here I was in total abandonment, letting life pass me by like a rotten vegetable.

I didn’t hear her coming like so many times before. Usually during the morning hours, Sarah would come to my deathbed to check if my heart had given up on me. My desire to be no more was stronger than ever, so why couldn’t she understand that her visits had no meaning? I had never intended to be like a piece of meat with a heartbeat; all I wanted was for my heart to stop and be sent to the deep where no light exists.

The hate I felt for Sarah was devouring me alive because I was unable to disconnect myself from the machine that was keeping me alive, prolonging my desire to be no more. I had been defying death, but my life had no meaning; it was empty in this desolate place. Committing suicide was never meant to make me the legume I’d become. My limitedness to make it in this world had forsaken me, and here was Sarah, insisting in bringing me back, tormenting me with her life stories. What was I to do other than to shut her voice with my active brain because no other organ in my body responded to my commands? I wanted to pull the plug and be gone to the deep for eternity, never to come back to the reality that had gotten me to this vegetable stage where I was depending on Sarah’s will to keep me connected, taking away my right to disappear, and prolonging this tormenting state of the legume I had become. I had no other choice but to answer to her will, wondering if she knew I was able to hear her voice. She kept me abet. It was as if she knew my why, and she would tell me her own story of how life itself is unpredictable.

Although she was in her third year of marriage, she was desperately trying to become pregnant, but no matter how much she wanted to have a baby to make John happy, she was unable to. She blamed herself for her marriage falling apart; it was becoming unbearable to see him devastated. It was always the same routine for her, coming back to an empty house and waiting for John to show at late hours, not because of work but because John would always stop at the local truck stop bar after work just to find something out of the ordinary to do. At least, this was the explanation he kept giving Sarah until she stop asking completely. The small apartment they live in was more than enough for the both of them, but she said that her dream was to have a big house with children running around that she would take care of, along with going away weekends full of excitement and fun.

For now, the small apartment would do; dinner was always ready at the regular time, but she hated to eat by herself. She remembered the first months into her marriage when John would always show up with a great smile on time for dinner, but as time went by, John lost interest in spending quality time as a family. She still felt it was her duty to continue with the tradition and was beginning to wonder if eventually the day would come when she would give John the great news over dinner. How many more times would she have to go to the doctor’s office only to find out that everything was perfectly fine, that she was able to bear life, and so was John? Therefore, she kept refusing any treatment, believing that it was not simply their time.

John accepted all the extra time at work during the first months of marriage to be able to support Sarah’s education; even when Sarah had to pay back the student loans, she was happy with her job as a physical therapist at the hospital.

My treatment was always in the mornings. I knew this because Sarah’s first words when she entered my room was always, Good morning. How are you doing today? She would ask this, knowing I wasn’t able to respond while her eyes followed the tubes attached to my mouth supplying me with the daily dose of oxygen that had kept me alive all this time.

Good morning to you, I replied in my mind, and she would continue with the news in her life, though I was unable to interrupt her as she sometimes repeated herself with the same story.

Her touch was cold and tender. At times, I was able to feel it in my mind as she changed the tapes covering my eyes, but I was unable to see her. For me, everything was darkness on the outside, but in my mind, I had an image of her being tall with long straight hair and a kind heart. I wondered if she even imagined I was able to hear her when I was awake within myself.

Unable to control the moment, I was suddenly taken back to the deep as I would travel to a different world, the one of no existence. Planning to die didn’t mean I would let myself go like a rotten vegetable. In spite of all that, this wasn’t my plan. I had made up my mind to end it all because my life had no meaning. To me, this was the only way out of correcting my mistakes, the point of no return. Not only once but many times I had attempted suicide in my mind, from the beginning to the end, contemplating the what if, and always ended up with the same question: what