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Sofia’s POV

 

Mommy counts exactly one hundred cheerios and puts them all into a pretty bowl. Before I eat them, I hold and observe every one of them.

 

“Mommy?” I call.

 

She turns around and smiles. “Yes sweetie?”

 

“Why do all cheerios have different sizes, but taste the same?”

 

Mommy says, “You’re exactly like your father, almost as curious as he was, even though you’re only seven. When he was in the hospital a few days before his…vacation…, we gave him cheerios and he asked the exact same question! I told him that it was because people are like cheerios, we’re all made out of the same skin and bones, but we all look and act different.”

 

My eyes brighten. I think this is why I love cheerios so much. I love being different. I don’t like being the same as all of the other boring first graders. “Last month, my class made snowflakes and Mrs. Miller told us that all snowflakes are different!” I exclaim.

 

“That’s right!” Mommy says. “Now, are you done with your breakfast?”

 

I look and notice that all of the food has been cleaned out of my bowl. “Yes!” I hand the bowl to her and she places it in the dirty sink.

 

Mommy then tells me to go into her room so that she can braid my hair. Yay! I love when she braids my hair! It makes me feel pretty!

 

The bed is big. Like really, really big. I could fit an elephant inside of it. Before daddy went on his vacation, he slept here too. One time, when mommy was on a business trip, I slept next to daddy in this bed without clothes on, including my pink bunny slippers. He didn’t have clothes on either. He played a game with me and it hurt my body for a couple of days and I didn’t like it, but he probably didn’t mean to hurt me. Love can hurt sometimes.

 

Mommy told me that after going to the hospital six months ago, he was sent to a really pretty place called Heaven. I heard that they have every Barbie doll in the world and all of the Mac and Cheese that I could imagine! She told me that he’s really happy there, but she misses him a lot. She even cries sometimes. I miss him too. But at least he can watch all of the football that he wants without me begging him to help me with my multiplication tables.

 

I am sitting on the bed when mommy comes in with a hairbrush and ties.

 

“Mommy, can you do two French braids, please?” I beg.

 

“Sure honey!” she says. Mommy begins to brush my hair and free it from its tangles. Each stroke is breaking away from all of its problems and making it into something new and soft. All of the strands of my auburn hair are becoming freer and freer by the second. Like Cinderella turning into a really pretty princess. She broke away from being a poor, dirty servant to her evil family to being something pretty, hopeful and free. My hairs are breaking free like Cinderella broke free.

 

And soon enough, so will I.

 

“Oops! I forgot to wake Milana!” Mommy panics.

 

 

 

 

 

Milana’s POV

I want to go back to sleep. Sleeping distracts the pain. It’s the time of day where I can live without a sharp edge cutting through my lungs as I try to breathe. When I’m sleeping, I always begin my dream with the same scenario. One where I’m on a beach, soaking up the sun when a magical fairy approaches me. She has luxurious, voluminous locks of sparkling gold hair. The shade of her eyes match that of the crystal blue ocean behind her. A strapless dress encrusted in bright orange jewels covers her curvy build. She holds a stick that is covered with peachy sequins with hot pink streamers sticking at the ends.

“Hello, you have been visited by the Dream Fairy. Sit down, please.” she asks in a soft voice while gesturing to a navy blue beach chair.

I sit in the chair as she begins to twirl her colorful stick. With each twirl, specks of a glowing rainbow light follow in the stick’s direction. The lights eventually condense into an enormous ball of light and begin to make noises that sound like boiling water. They spin around each other, the colors mixing and mingling, until they intertwine to form a cylinder with a wide array of colors in a random order. Then, the air snips away at parts of the cylinder to form an object with a gigantic sphere on the top that is held by a white thread that is no more than three centimeters thick. The object spirals once again, but now the sphere is made out of blue rubber. The Dream Fairy graciously takes the object by its string and hands it to me.

“This is your balloon,” she says. “Do you know why I chose the color blue?”

I shake my head.

She sighs. “Well, you seem to be holding onto something sad that happened in your past. What is it?”

Every time she asks this, I take a walk down memory lane and try to connect the dots. But nothing has ever matched. It’s like a disorganized child trying to figure out a puzzle. They have all of the pieces in the box, but they don’t know how to organize them in a way that creates a specific image.

I shake my head again.

“Well, think of this balloon as all of your feelings and worries. I want you to pour your entire soul into this balloon, because when you are ready, you are going to release the balloon into the air, and you are going to watch it. As you are watching your balloon fly away from you, your worries and feelings will be carried along with it, and you will never even think about them again. Got it?” she advises.

I nod.

“Alright, on the count of three,” she explains. “One, two�"“

“Three!” we say in harmony. I release the tight grip on the string and my hand gradually calms itself. I stare into the clouds as I watch all of the bad things in my life fly further and further away from me. At this moment, my body is bursting with energy! Adrenaline pumps through my body, into my veins, and reaches my brain! I leap as if I were an alleged criminal that has just been taken off of death row and proven not guilty of a crime.

I am free.

"Milana, now I am going to soothe your mind and body with sand and warm rocks, but you have to follow my instructions carefully in order for this to work." she exclaims.

"Alright." I reply.

She demands, "Lie back down, please."

I follow her command as she empties a bag filled with jet-black rocks onto the warm sand. She picks them up and places them about five inches away from my right arm.

"Ready?" she asks.

I nod.

"Take a breath. Wiggle your toes. Get all of your fidgets out of the way. You have to be nice and still for this." she politely demands.

I shake my body and let it run free of its energy.

"Now, I'm going to start from the toes and rub all of the soothing sand and warmth of the rocks gradually up to the top of your head," she begins placing piles of warm, lusting sand on my toes and massages them. With each stroke of her hand, I am becoming more and more at peace. She also take out the rocks and places them one by one on the layers of my skin, where they soak up the heat and open my pores. The sun is finally setting on my empire. She heads all the way up from my toes, to my ankles, to my knees and to an area right below my hips and between my legs.

All of a sudden, my brain starts flashing with graphic imagery. I see hands of older men gripping onto a young woman's prized possession. The image lasts about two seconds and is immediately followed by another sort of imagined media. There are no visuals this time, but all I can hear is the sound of another woman screaming for her life, crying from pain and pleading for God to save her.

This is when the peacefulness of the sleep comes to a halt.

"No! Stop!" I shout, snapping out of the hypnosis.

With a concerned look on her face, she asks, "What's wrong?"

"You better stay the f**k away from me or else things won't be pretty. Stay away from me, my loved ones and my body!" I scream.

Droplets of water begin to throw themselves down my cheeks as I sprint further and further away. My stomach is knotted like a string to a bracelet and I can barely even move, but I force myself to run further and further away. Run from the enemy. Run.

And then the blue balloon, the one that was once in the sky and emptying my worries, reappears in the palm of my hand. All of those feelings and grudges are returned, and nothing has changed. I am not free anymore. I am now locked inside of my own prison. I open my mouth to scream, but only silence comes out.

When I wake up to my pillow stained in tears, I always ask myself, "Why do I keep having the same dream over and over again? What does it mean?"

I have never been able to answer that question.

"Sweetie, get up!" my mom shouts.

I sigh. "Here comes another day of living my torturous life." I mumble.

Reviews

[Richard simpson]

This is great I love the point of view you put into the progression of the character's thoughts and traits and the mother daughter relationship in this. Though, the only problem I had is you weren't too descriptive about the bed or the house or things like that. I advise you to write more from the heart and emotional standpoint of the characters and draw some intensity in it somehow. But, it's good.