Thursday, April 03, 2003

A Golden Glow Inside The Baby Day!

The new baby has a golden glow inside it. You can see the light when you crack the baby's door open and shards of yellow stab out into the hallway. Sometimes you have to go back into the room because, lying in bed just a few minutes after you last stood by the baby, you remember the moment taking place in a room with orange walls, when you know you painted those walls blue. You made a day of it some months ago, parents-to-be painting walls the color of paint they'd bickered over then went out and bought with their own hard-earned money. You go down the hall to check the walls up close and of course they're blue. You check on the baby, then go back to bed and in your mind's eye you were just in a room with orange walls again.

"Think our baby's Jesus?"

"No."

"Buddha?"

"No, honey. Go back to sleep."

"Babies aren't supposed to emit a heavenly golden glow. I'm worried he's some kind of messiah and he's going to be taken away from us."

"There's no such thing as messiahs. Go to sleep."

"Okay, well what if he's imbued with something we can't even comprehend yet. What if he's somehow like a sun fell to earth."

"He's our son and he didn't fall to earth. You delivered him fair and square."

"No, but he could provide an alternative energy to the planet once we drain resources. That could be it. All we see of it now is a humming glow coming off of him but once the need is there his power might exert itself. If he's a product of nature, nature hates a vacuum. And they'd take him away from us for that, if he could provide the earth with a necessary sustenance. They'd take him to some desert and put him up atop a tower and we'd have to drive out and wave to him from the ground and hold up signs that say 'Hi honey.' And we'd have to see him wave back at us through binoculars."

"I'm so tired."

"But they'd take him away from us for something like that. What could we do in the face of the end of the world?"

"Just go to bed. They wouldn't take him away."

Yes they would. In fact, someone already has. You don't feel it yet because you're hot with worry. But you're going to sleep for an hour until you wake with a shiver. You'll wake and the house will be ice cold and dark with the lights on. You'll run to his room and you'll know before you even open that door that the baby is gone and whoever took him left the window open.

Happy A Golden Glow Inside The Baby Day!