I don’t recall if I slept in the upper bunk, or hid from the night on the lower. The tree-fort terrace of the mystic hours where one would touch the plaster sky, and spy on the voices down the hall. Or the fortress cave, with sheets tucked around as impenetrable walls, flashlight secrets safe in its core. I recall I slept near the wall when the beds were separate and headboards and footboards returned to their rightful place. I recall when mono struck me held me down, sweating, breathing, fever dreaming, against the wall. An anchor to hold on to. Waking, asthma, a clear plastic tent, White and cold, harsh daylight. No recollection of laying in this bed. No recollection of anyone I knew. The nurses said you visited, but they didn’t want to wake me. Kept apart by a clear plastic wall. Kept separate and away. Where was my brother? I had a brother. I have a brother. Was he in the upper bunk? Where was my brother when fever dreams took me—when oxygen was stolen from my lungs? I lay in my bed, my wife at my side. Awake, I stare at the wall. My children, their children, asleep in their beds, in far-away towns. I think of my brother, still farther away, and farther away, and farther away. But only the distance between me and the upper bunk.
M. E.