Jamie Anthony Louis
Rises in the West
It took me too long to get here. To get home. I open my eyes and I’m a child. Born again in midnight’s bosom and the sun is rising now. The windows across from my bed show the Pacific in oranges and yellows and pinks and purples. About half the colors in the world right there, I think, as I sit up and lay my tiny hands on my lap. These hands are mine and yet they are not mine.
The boy in my head, who is me and isn’t me, says, “You made it. Now what?”
I shake my head to dismiss him and continue to stare at the rising sun. But then something nags at my mind. Chews on my brain stem, takes a bite out of my cerebellum.
“The sun doesn’t rise on the Pacific Ocean,” the boy says with a laugh that sounds more like a sob.
My lips tremble. I look away. “Maybe the sun is setting and it’s my mistake,” I say. But then I look again, and that orange circle is still inching up above the horizon, and my stomach is whirling like it’s filled with salt water. And I know I’m forgetting the most important thing in all of this.
By the time I realize it’s all a fake, a man I don’t want to see appears at the foot of my bed. He smiles too pleasantly and sits on the edge. He crosses his expensive black chinos that clash with his old t-shirt and converse sneakers.
“Hello again, sweetheart,” he says like I know him. But this is my own mind, after all. I can’t be fooled into false senses of security.
He knows my thoughts, because he adds, “I almost got you this time. If only you hadn’t thought too hard about the sun.”
A tear falls down my cheek. I scowl. He knows my feelings towards him. This man who I’ve never met. This man, my father.
He tilts his head, “Of course I do. That’s why you’re here.” I look away again and again. He says, “You love me too much. That’s your Achilles heel.”
Finally, I speak out loud. “You’re like a devil trying to tempt me to Hell.”
He taps his finger on the blue comforter, where he’s leaning on one arm. “I thought you didn’t believe in all that.”
“Neither did you.”
He smiles again. “That’s true. So why would you say something so mean?”
I lean forward a bit and stare at my elongated fingers. Yes, a dream it is. I say, “I’m trying to protect you. The real you.” The memory of you.
“I’m not real enough for you?”
“No,” I say. I reach for the boy, but he pulls back like a kicked dog.
The man I love too much—but really, it’s just a poor imitation—stands up and brushes off his chinos like the conversation covered him in dust and debris. “Well. That’s all she wrote.” He’s gone with my next breath.
I go back to staring at the rising sun. I know I could make this real. If I tried hard enough. Took a big enough risk. But I have to get up soon. I don’t need a lie. I don’t need this home.
But then, why is the boy crying so hard?
Jamie Anthony Louis (they/them) is a non-binary Chicano who loves to write and is trying to share their love with the world one story at a time. They have been published in Maudlin House and, now, Does It Have Pockets.
