I’m not sure how I missed that Hummer barreling down the highway, but I made a left off a side road, onto the highway – or I tried to make a left, right into the monster’s path.

SCREEEEEETCH! BOOM! SMASH! CRASH!

I took the hit right in the driver’s door, and my little car wrapped around the Hummer’s grill like aluminum foil around a baked potato, and my bones shattered, my flesh splattered. Funny how it all happens so fast, but the second before such a crash takes an eternity to play out. The bright headlights start moving your way like snails, creeping up, edging up, little by little, the tires squeal. I throw my hands into the air in resignation, though they are as heavy as lead, and each thump of my heart is like a 20-pound maul slamming into my sternum. The door caves in, the steering wheel splinters, shards of glass sandblast the side of my face, the driver’s seat rips from its bolts and the drive train bends and shatters; the seatbelt tears from my shoulder as the steel punches into my body and entombs it.

“Fuck.” That’s all I can think, all I can ponder, all I can hope for or remember before the lights go out, that, and the taste of my own blood in my mouth.

“Rock-a-bye, baby
In the treetop…”

I gasp for air! I’m barely able to suck the wind in as it grates through my parched throat.

“When the wind blows…”

My eyes pop open! My sight is blurred and the light is so bright it makes me slam my lids shut and grit my teeth.

“The cradle will rock…”

“Now, now, baby boy. You’re just having a bad dream.”

After much blinking and suffering for breath, flailing my head side to side, I come to. And there I am, a babe the size of a full-grown man, wrapped in swaddling cloths, in the arms and lap of a gargantuan, but very pretty, buxom nurse. I try to speak but cannot. I try to lift my arms, but they are weak and wrapped, tied to my side in blankets. All I can let out is a pitiful wail! 

“BWAAAAAAAAA!!!”

“Poor darling baby is hungry, sweet baby, my dear,” coos the nurse. And with that she plucks out a large swollen breast with a giant, pink nipple. When I try to cry out:

“MMMPPPHHHH!!!”

I grunt as my toothless mouth is forced apart and filled with her soft flesh. Gasping for air but unable to breathe, the milk jettisons into my mouth with powerful spurts, bloats my cheeks as if I were a squirrel who’d plucked too many acorns, and begins drowning me as it fills my throat, stomach, lungs.

“GUUUURRRRGGGLEEEE!”

“Sweet baby.” Is all I hear.

“And down will come baby…”

SCREEEEEETCH! BOOM! SMASH! CRASH!

The door caves in, the steering wheel splinters, shards of glass sandblast the side of my face, the driver’s seat rips from its bolts and the drive train bends and shatters; the seatbelt tears from my shoulder as the steel punches into my body and entombs it.

And there I am, after only a confused blink of eyes, an instant. I am sitting on a toilet stool in a small, cold room. I’m naked. I hold up my hands and look at them. They are covered with wrinkles and age spots. I look down and see bony knees and the flesh hanging off my thighs. I feel my face and my head. I’m withered and bald. I’m an old man.

My heart thumps pitifully and weakly in my hollow chest.

“Mr. Wraith? Have you had your bowel movement?” Speaks a young man’s voice from behind the door.

“What?” I cry out in a hoarse, wispy voice.

“You haven’t gone for days, but with the medicine we’ve given you, you should be able to go now. Just give a little push and it should come out.”

Come to think of it, I did need to poop, so what the hell? I gave a little squeeze.

“PUSH! PUSH!” Is all I heard before losing consciousness once again. Damn it hurt. Must have been a humdinger of a large, dry turd. A real humdinger.

And once again, I gasp for air! I’m barely able to suck the wind in as it grates through my parched throat.

“Mr. Wraith?”

My eyes pop open! My sight is blurred and the light is so bright it makes me slam my lids shut and grit my teeth.

“Mr. Wraith?”

After much blinking and suffering for breath, I come to. And there I am, a full grown man, lying in a hospital bed and no longer old, and not wrapped in swaddling cloths. Im just me, but I’m wearing one of those gowns that leaves the ass exposed.

“Mr. Wraith?” Says my old high school gym teacher. I immediately recognize his voice. He is leaning over me and looking into my face with concern. He’s holding something in his arms.

“Yeah Coach?”

“Johnny my boy, you’re a lucky boy!”

“What? Why?”

“You’ve had a puppy!!!”

And with that exclamation, a furry, warm little puppy with long ears and a pink, moist nose is thrust into my arms. I hold it tightly to my body as it purs like a kitten, and in this loving embrace I keep it cherished for many days, held firmly to my heart, not daring or wanting to ever let it go. When the puppy poops, out comes candy corn and I take it into my hand, pop it into my mouth, and suck at the sweetness.

So then I woke up and realized I’d had a dream:

Suffer abundance in youth without knowing to embrace it and remember your glory when you are old, for only by feeling the pain of lost time and loss itself can you savor the sweetness you once tasted and embraced unknowingly.

I pulled out onto the highway. No Hummer was coming. The road was clear ahead and I drove 20 mph over the speed limit, though I was in no hurry to my destination. I’d been there many times and every day was always the same.