Inner Child

In the dream there is a little girl, sitting on a bed.

I am offering the soldiers chocolates and candied almonds. The soldiers, apparently, are guards in some type of corrupt regime, of which we are being held captive. They take the candy from my trembling hands absent mindedly, while laughing amongst themselves, hardly looking at me.

Perhaps this will work to spare lives, I think, at least some of the captives’ lives -serving men candy. Someone had suggested I be the one to do it, one of the other adults.

I notice the little girl’s black dress is wrinkled and too big for her, bony knees sticking out. Adella reminds me of a slender young calf. How long has she been crying, forgotten, sitting alone on that big bed ~ her face pale, surrounded by long, dark hair, escaping it’s plaits and any attention from a mother’s comb?

I see out the window in back of her Marta, Mieta and Hans.

They are running across that large expanse of empty field. Running, fleeing for their lives, in their own tattered clothing, that they might make it to safety. I am glad because I love them in the dream, these people that I don’t know.

While Adella says softly to me, still weeping, “I can’t run unless you’re holding my hand”.

She looks up at me then with large, soulful eyes, hungry in so many ways. I try to move towards her but my injured legs don’t work at all, and they feel like lead in my body.

I don’t have a crust of bread to give her, let alone sweets for her journey. The chocolates and almonds are gone.

She slowly gets off the bed then, walks out the door, and sets out across that barren field all by herself, head held down. I stare out the window watching her, my heart breaking, my throat constricting. She is trailing so far behind the others.

With one last effort, I manage to stumble to the door, moving in slow motion as one often does in dreams, as if with each step I bear the weight of the world. But at least Adella will see me and know I that I tried. I am trying not to leave her all alone, or behind, and this way I finally catch up to her, my pain wild and free now, as if I’ve finally unlocked it, to let it course where it will.

And reaching out to her, grabbing her little fingers I say,  “I’m so sorry Adella, forgive me Adella, I love you Adella…

“I can’t run unless I’m holding your hand”.