B.R.R.'s Days: Age 4

Disclaimer: B.R.R.'s Days (pronounced brrrrrr'sdays to rhyme with thursdays) are basically Molly's effort to give me some reason to write things and she is sweet for indulging me. I am of the opinion that writers are some of the most arrogant wind-bags that exist in world, because they invariably assume that anyone would want to know what is in their minds, so as a disclaimer I ask that whoever reads this forgive me beforehand and realize that I am just having fun/pleasing my wife--which is also fun. 

Second Disclaimer: the following--for how many weeks I don't know yet--is part of an idea I've been tossing around that uses many sections of flash fiction (poetic, train-of-thought, flash images in prose) each representing a different year in a person's life. The main goal would be to put them all together (maybe not in order) to present an interesting and realistic, if disjointed, picture of humanity complete with the characters and characteristics of an identifiable main character's life. Bear with me, but the project was inspired by a quote from On the Road which reads "our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life." Here, I think, it would be more appropriate to argue that life is the road, and that is the sort of thinking that has inspired me to do something so weird. 

Age 4: outside the blanket Daddy pushes his hands under me like he is scooping water from a bucket and I think he has too much hair on his arms. in my dreams he has the same face as God but I know he is just him even though the Bible says he is made in God’s image so I don’t know. Daddy says he would cut off his arm for me if it would save my life but I don’t understand what he means—only that it means he loves me more.  when the covers are all tucked Daddy lays down next to me after he turns on the tape and I put my nose against his nose and try to breathe through my nose at the same time he breathes. I wonder if he is already asleep and if he is pretending so that I will fall asleep first and then I watch the fan and try to see just one wing of it instead of the whole spinning circle. i am too warm but I don’t move much because I am tucked in. i try not to but I think about what if Daddy and the whole world are robots and I am the only real kid and I can’t get married because they aren’t the same as me and I can’t have kids either I don’t think. I pretend I am only imagining because I feel his soft nose and his foot touching my foot but except for that dream about being stuck in a giant house with no doors, I dream it all the time and it scares me because I feel alone, but also like the hero of the world.