Dora wakes up slowly. She lifts her head, and it feels like it’s stuffed with cotton balls. She looks from left to right.  All she sees is what looks like the morning sky, and it is somewhat overcast. She attempts to rise. And she realizes two things at once.  First, she isn’t in her bedroom and, hence, not in her bed. And secondly, she isn’t alone. “What the hell is going on? Whose idea of a joke is this, goddammit.”

by Rauschenberg-Pixabay

Dora isn’t a morning person. It’s the main reason she never married. She can’t bear the idea of waking up next to someone every morning and having to make small talk. She isn’t cheerful, or it’s a new beginning kind of girl. She’s more of a get the hell out of my face kind of girl.

And here she is, wherever the hell that is? Outside looking at the great beyond. She finally gets her sea legs and stands up gingerly. It almost feels like she is on a ship out at sea. And a storm is brewing. There is a slight swaying beneath her feet. She looks down. Unbelievably, she sees nothing, just more sky. “What the fuck is going on?” Dora curses like a sailor on leave when she’s frightened or angry or happy, or drunk, or just because she damn well feels like it, damn it. She was born and raised in South Philly, and she doesn’t give a good goddamn what anyone thinks about her.

But right now, she fears the worst: that she has finally gone off her rocker, lost her marbles, or lived in a crazy town. Take your pick.

She twists her head and then looks down again. Her head spins. Momentarily, she feels as if she might faint or stroke out. She hasn’t decided which she prefers. At her feet are two objects that, for all the world, look like giant eggs. They look like they weigh a good twenty pounds each.  They are pale green with blue speckles. “Sweet muscular Jesus, I must have taken some bad assed drugs last night. This is the worst hallucination I have ever had. “Wake up, wake up, you dumb shit.”

Dora squeezes her eyes shut and shakes her head vigorously, painfully. Trying to wake up from this nightmare or bad trip or whatever the fuck it is. She has had enough. And then suddenly, she hears what can only be described as what sounds like the scream of someone being torn limb from limb. She fears that she is the one screaming.

She pries and opens her eyes with her fingertips. Because she can’t manage to make them open any other way, momentarily, she is relieved because she doesn’t see any blood spurting out of her shoulder where her arm used to reside. She touches the top of her head, and it appears to be intact. She looks down and sees that both feet are attached to both legs. “What the flying fuck is going on here?”

And that is when she sees what is poking out of the egg-shaped object. The things that nightmares are made of. Without warning, a sound so loud, so horrific that she could not even believe it existed.  Not in the world she previously lived in or any other world man or woman has imagined. She covers her ears. She starts saying the Hail Mary, words she hasn’t uttered since she attended Catholic Grade School. God, anyone, somebody, please help me. Wake me up, help me.

She looks down; surely, her eyes must be deceiving her. But at her feet and rising out of the “egg” is what looks like a nightmarish bird. A bird from the Third Circle of Hell, a bird without feathers. A bird exposed to radiation. But, then “the bird” opens its monstrous beak, it displays a mouth full of teeth. Teeth that perhaps once belonged to a Saber Tooth Tiger. And then, just as she feels, she might lose her mind.  The other egg starts cracking, and a beak starts to emerge. The screaming begins anew. It is so loud that she thinks her head might explode. That is the moment she realizes that the ungodly bellowing is not coming from the horrific babies. But something is flying above her and baring down on what she now realizes is some kind of nest from hell.

The babies are screaming in unison. Surely, Dora’s eardrums will burst soon, and she will no longer have to endure the sound for another moment. The thing that was flying above her is now circling for a landing on the freaking nest. At that moment, a thought pops into her mind. She tries to push it away. But she can’t, it remains. The thought is I’m the worm that these ungodly creatures will be given for their first meal.

The closer the gargantuan bird came, the more eminent the end of Dora’s life became. Her life flashes before her eyes. Just like you always hear happens to people when their lives are about to end, as they jump off the roof, or the bridge, or drown in a polluted lake. She sees her long-dead mother’s face looking down at her baby self. She sees her first day in school with Sister John Michael telling her to sit down and shut up. She sees herself playing with her friends in the backyard. The vision begins to fast forward, and her final thought is, “What the fuck is happening?” Gimme another chance, please. I can do better. And then the lights go out.

The light is bright, unbearably bright. There is a low humming noise. A sense of floating through the air. Dora feels a sense of release as if she was bound and now, she is free. She hopes she is in heaven or some version of heaven and not hell. Even though in her previous life she long ago gave up the notion of the hereafter. She hears a distant voice that she thinks must be God or Satan. “Open your eyes.”

Cora is afraid to open her eyes to eternity. “You can do it, Cora; open your eyes.” Cora opens her eyes. The bright light is still above her. She hears a high-pitched crying. She thinks, on no, I’m still in the nightmare. She forces her eyes open. “Try to sit up a little, Cora, and you can hold your baby. You had a rough time of it. But you are both fine, Congratulations.

Cora looks around, is speechless for a moment, and then shrilly says,” What the hell is this?”

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