Dreams

Dreams are warnings1

“Aghh!” I scream and jump up in my bed, sweat pouring down my face. I breathe slowly, trying to calm down. It was only a dream, I tell myself, a nightmare. They run riot at night, but die before light. I smile at my little rhyme and glance out the window. It’s quite early and the birds are singing. I’m okay, it’s all fine. A dream, a dream. Then I see the sun, creeping up into the sky, and I freeze. The nightmare comes rushing back to me.
A golden flame, beautiful and bewitching. I picked it up and it grew. It roared red, and started to cover my body. I screamed in pain, but it didn’t stop. Black burns covered my body, like an over-burnt piece of bread. I made the fire go out with a bucket of water I found in my hand, but it still hurt. My black skin peeled off and all was left was pink, raw skin. I couldn’t touch it, it hurt so much. I started to run home, my feet dying with every step. Then I fell. Rocks, roots and grass scraped my skin and I screamed. I screamed, and screamed, until I woke up.
I blink and look at the sun again. Pah! It’s only the sun! How silly, I think, how very silly. Scared of the sun! But the dreams nags me, until I remember something Nana told me.
“Draw it on paper, and rip it into one hundred pieces. The dream will never bother you again.” So I draw down the fire on a piece of paper. I’m surprised how harmless it looks. Innocent, not scary like in my dream. But I rip the piece of paper in half and quarters. Then I stop, strangely compelled to leave it alone. Anyway, I tell myself. I’m wasting good paper. So I stop and put the four pieces of paper on the table.2

“Karen!” my mother calls. “School!” Oh, yes! School today! I almost forgot. I grab my bag and run out the door, leaving the four pieces of paper behind me.3

It is lunchtime when when phone rings. I am with my friends; laughing, eating, talking. I pick up my phone.
“Hiya’s!” I say, causing my friends to explode into giggles.
“Karen, it that you?!” a voice cries desperately.
“Who’s there?” I ask cautiously.
“It’s me. Mum.” she says and sniffs. I wonder what’s wrong. My mum doesn’t cry much. “I’m picking you up. Nia’s hurt. Your sister is hurt.”4

I grab my bag and run out of the playground.
“Karen!?” my friends call. “What’s wrong?” I know they’re worried, but I can’t go back. I don’t have time. My little sister is hurt.
“Karen Xiu!” the principal says when I crash into him. I mutter a ‘sorry’ and kept on running. “No running on the footpath!” he shouts after me, but I ignore him. Nia is hurt.5

Mum’s car is at the gate. I jump in.
“What happened?” I ask.
“I don’t know!” she cries. She looks dreadful. Her hair is wild and her make-up smeared by countless tears. I take a deep breath. “She’s at the hospital.” Mum says, all that she can manage between her sobs. It’s even worse than I thought. And I’m getting a horrible premonition, that I have something to do with this. 6

Dreams cannot be destroyed - not totally7

We walk into the hospital, wanting to run. Walls of a hundred shades of grey surround us, bearing down with their dour colours. Foreboding colours. We walk up to see-though doors, bouncing off our reflections. Any other time, I might have looked at myself, made sure my make-up was perfect. But not today. Why would I care about anymore? I just want Nia to be okay. 8

Finally we reach the ward Nia is in. Mum says who we are and lets us in. But she warns us not to touch Nia. What has happened?! And then I see her. She is covered in burns and I notice how small she is, how fragile. I can only see her head, but I know that’s not the only place of damage. Soaking wet flannels are wrapped around the rest of her. Her face is disfigured and I think idly how she will never be pretty. Like that matters!! Soon I am convinced of that when the nurse comes in.
“How is she?” Mum asks, her voice raw. The nurse smiles kindly before saying;
“She’s worse than we thought. She could die.” the nurse said, pausing, allowing us to take the information in. “She’s only four and her body is still weak.”
“How did this happen?” I ask, stunned. The nurse replies, as Mum doesn’t seem to be able.
“Your mother was gardening when it happened. Nia was inside, playing where your mother could see her – in the dining room. But she looked away for a second and Nia was screaming. She turned to look and Nia was on fire. Thankfully, your mother got the fire out pretty quickly, but the damage was done.”
“Where did the fire come from?” I asked. Since Nia was born, all the matches lived on a very high shelf, which even I couldn’t reach. The nurse shrugged and I felt like hitting her. How could she be so relaxed!? But she doesn’t notice the rising anger on my face.
“That’s the strange thing,” she said “there wasn’t any match. She must have got some flammable liquid on her and somehow it lit.” I raised an eyebrow. “We’ll, that’s the best, realistic guess!” said the nurse.
“You think we just leave it lying around the house, don’t you.” Mum said quietly, anger tinting her voice. What mother would leave such a dangerous thing where a little child could get it?
“Mrs Xiu,” the nurse said. “We don’t know how it happened and that was a guess, the most possible one. Fire wouldn’t burn so fast otherwise.”
“I hope you’re not suggesting I left my child, burning..” Mum started, her lips tightly compressed. The nurse interrupted her.
“I’m not suggesting anything” she said with finality. “Visiting hours will soon be over. You have thirty minutes. If anything happens, call me. I’ll be nearby.” She walked out of the room, Mum glaring after her.9

When she was gone, Mum started crying, really hard.
“Oh, Karen. Karen!” she cried, as though I was the adult now and she was the child, looking for reassurance. I held her as she cried, but my brain was whiring. The burns that Nia had, the rate they had grown …. and how Nia was in the dining room, where my shredded nightmare lay on the table. My dream had come true, reached it’s ghostly tendrils into my world of reality. But it didn’t catch me. It caught my sister.