Fried Eggs

All the houses on my street looked the same - save for minor details; the colors of the garage doors and the landscaping on the lawns - small homes; semi-detached back splits. Despite the fact that I was a tomboy - filthy, bruised knees and dirt under my bitten fingernails, with grass stains on my clothes mother would curse over - I had, nonetheless, a typical little girl’s room. Walls painted soft baby pink and white furniture. I slept on a single bed with a white and gold head and foot board. The blanket did not match the decor, but it was warm to cuddle with so I opted for comfort opposed to visual appeal. (I was six, what the hell did I care about decor anyways?) A white wicker shelf stood to the right of the foot of my bed. I filled it (my mother filled it, rather) with dolls that weren’t meant for playing with, but for looking at. Two in particular; a white porcelain one wearing a navy blue velvet dress with lace trim, and hair that fell off because the glue became un-adhered to her head, the other, a larger doll with long brown that fell in waves and the prettiest painted eyes a doll could possibly be given. And so these dolls sat in my almost indistinguishable house, in my girly room that I couldn’t relate to, on the wicker shelf my mother decided to fill.

It was a dead hour - quite late - and the city, I’m sure, had retired for the night as I had tried to. I lay in bed wide-eyed and stared around my tiny room. My eyes caught the dolls. They continued to sit, the same content expression on their faces. As that expression remained unchanged, both dolls turned their heads and looked my way. In that exact moment, my closet sporadically went up into flames. The dolls watched me while the room became warm as the heat of the fire burned my eyes. The pink on the walls turned orange. The fire, however, didn’t spread, and the flames remained the same size. In what seemed to be only seconds, the heat felt bearable and my eyes hurt less. Oddly enough, nothing around the burning closet caught fire. After a few more moments, some neighbors came into my room - how they got in my house I didn’t know. They sat on my bed, one by one, as more and more people came in to see the phenomenon, until my bed was bombarded with bodies.

Between blinks, I saw a kangaroo hula-hooping. At the sight and sound of a red flashing siren, the hula-hooping came to an end. I was the only one who saw this hula-hooping kangaroo. In the meantime, the closet continued burning, and the people continued watching. It was regular and idle. No one seemed to mind, no one said a word. My room was filled with silence, not even the flames made a sound. It was something out of a silent film. We all sat - the neighbors, the dolls, and myself - and watched my closet burn.

When I woke, I quickly sat up - tears in my eyes and I’m certain I was sweating. I panned the room over - the dolls still sat, the closet was unscathed and there were no more people inside. I called for my mother. She held me in her arms in a way she hadn’t done for some time. She hushed my fears while stroking my forehead, pushing the hair away from my face. We stayed that way for a few minutes. She put me back to bed, gave me a glass of water and told me it was just a dream, to rest.

I lay under the blanket that didn’t match the decor, that was on the bed which had been covered in people, in the typical little girl’s bedroom with the closet that had burned, with the dolls my mom placed on the shelf which turned their heads to look at me, in the house that looked the same as the others.