A NEW WAVE OF MIRACLES STUNS THE WORLD

for C.H.


Although the world is breaking, it is mine; I know it by its color of rye grass. I have done nothing to deserve this, I told the nun as she bent to make the sign of the cross on my forehead. What will happen now? Will they take me away from here? Will they make me appear on stages? Will the crowds touch my eyelids with their big hands until I am blind? I dreamt that my eyes were cut by crystal tears. Everything I saw was marked with tiny scratches, and with my tears, blood ran in streams down my face and into my lap. My dress was a lake of blood where cattle were feeding.
Eat your soup, Mama said, combing my hair. You should be ashamed of such dreams.
But I am not. I have done nothing to deserve this.
It is the gift of God, she says. Sit up straight.
Lord I am not worthy, I repeat when I kneel down at my bed at night. I pray that God will enter the eyes of someone else. Why not my brother, Isaac? He is the one that rescued the baby from the well. Someone had tried to drown it there. Who would do such a thing? Papa said, such a person shall burn in hell.
Mama made Isaac his favorite dinner that night, and he got to pick the passage to read in school. But after that, everyone forgot that Isaac had saved a life. Isn't saving a baby a miracle? I asked the pastor, better than crying glass?
I dreamt that my body was a diamond floating high in the clouds. The sky grew dark and storms came. A freezing wind wore away at my corners; I started to plummet to the ground. As I fell through the sky, my body broke into crystal chips. They covered the meadow like snow. I was dead on the ground in pieces, and I could feel pain in each one. No one came to help because they did not recognize me and thought I was only the snow.
This is my dream, I told Papa as he milked the goats. His hands were raw from the cold and were wet with the pale, bluish milk.
You ate too many cheese curds, he laughed, that is why everything in your dream is white.


That day in school, a reporter came with a photographer and an eye doctor. She wanted me to tell the story from the very beginning and leave out nothing.
What beginning? I looked at Sister Joseph, who nodded. Then I felt chilly all over, and started to shiver so I couldn't talk. My teeth were stuck together as if I had eaten paste.
She was born in a stable, Sister said to the reporter, just like the infant Jesus.
It was a cow shed, I heard Isaac yell from the back of the classroom, which was the temporary hospital after the storms. Sister gave him her paddling look.
She is very reverent, she continued, as the reporter scribbled frantically, a holy and very sensitive child.
The bright flashes of the camera were beginning to burn my eyes, which watered slightly. The doctor came closer to me, his face covered in blue spots.
Ooff! Isaac sighed loudly, she's nothing but a crybaby.
We all knew then that he would definitely get the paddle, but still I couldn't speak. The reporter was mad at me. She asked if it was okay if the doctor examined my eyes now, and I let him, even though his hands reeked of city perfume, and his flesh was puffy and yellow and reminded me of cheese curds.


Liars, Isaac grumbled as he walked me home that afternoon. He was walking funny because Sister had hit him so hard.
Puss-filled liars, Isaac spit into the field. I can't help laughing when he swears and spits at the same time.
Well they are!
You look like a goat, I said watching him wobble.
He spat again, a creamy glob that arched up in the air for a second before dropping.
I spat too, right in the same place, but without the arch. He smiled. He liked that I couldn't spit as well as him, or milk the goats by myself. I wondered if Isaac was mad because a reporter never came to interview him when he found the baby.
Why are they telling these stories? I asked.
I dunno. Isaac was twirling his sack over his head like the propeller of a helicopter. They think it's funny.
I don't know why Sister Joseph didn't pretend she had stuff growing out of her own eyes.
It's because you're inn-o-scent, he pronounced it slowly so I knew he didn't know what he was saying. He went around repeating big words all the time.
What does that mean? I bugged him.
You're just a kid, he pronounced, as he put down his bag to tie his shoe.
No you're the kid, baaaabaaa! I yelled, grabbing his book bag.
He chased me home.
That night I dreamt I was a tiny little baby that was so new, I sparkled. I hadn't gotten dirty yet. Some huge hands came and picked me up and ran with me. They were all perfumey. I could hear their feet, and felt their sweat on my face. Just then I looked down and saw that these hands were going to drop me in a well. The well seemed bottomless until I saw that it was full of poisonous, hissing snakes. The snakes were singing first, and then they became the sisters hiding in the well. They were arguing about morning prayers.
Don't drop me, I pleaded, please don't drop me in the well. But the hands couldn't understand, because I was just a baby, and didn't know how to talk yet. They let go and I was falling and I closed my eyes because I knew I would die. Suddenly, I had landed in a bucket. Under me, the snakes hissed. The pulleys squeaked, and the ropes began to move. It had to be my brother; I knew he was coming to save me. I felt so happy as the ropes pulled me up. But when I got to the top of the well, there was an old billy goat waiting for me. His eyes were red and angry. I knew then that he was going to take me home and feed me to his hungry family.
When I awoke, I found I had wet the bed. I hadn't done this since I was little. I thought Mama would be mad, so I got up as quietly as I could, and took the sheets into the tub and rinsed them out. The sun was just starting to come up, so I tiptoed to the shed and hung them from a hook on the wall. Even my toes were freezing! I ran back to my bed, to huddle under my blanket.
What's this? Mama said, carrying the sheets into my room after breakfast.
I thought I was going to get a paddling. Instead Mama put the sheets on a chair and came over and put her arms around me.
You have nothing but nightmares since they started fussing over you. She rubbed my head. I wish it were over already.
I was so relieved I started to cry. Mama smelled like the hay in the shed, sweet and warm. Isaac is right when he calls me a crybaby. I cry even when I'm happy. I put my arms around Mama and wept. I wished I could hide in this house, hugging her forever. Even when I heard the light clink on the floor, one, then another, I didn't let go of Mama. Even when the floor was covered with cut glass up to our ankles, even when the room swirled in colors from the gems, so that later they wrote that you had to wear wading pants to walk in the house, if you didn't want your legs torn and dripping blood.