They tell me that they can pluck babies out of thin air and plant them in mothers now. Well, maybe not out of thin air, but out of long nodules of straight and twisted glass and prickly needles and tubes, and that’s almost the same thing the way I look at it.
Of course, it doesn’t have to be true. None of the stuff They tell you nowadays has to be true. They have that thing―what do they call it, news, daily news?―that thing that makes it only seem like you know what you’re doing, when in reality all you’re doing is what They are telling you to do.
This, of course, at the very least brings into play the question of who’s telling THEM what to tell you to do, but then you end up going round and round in vicious spiraling quagmires—and I mean really vicious, snarling, foam-flecked mouth dripping saliva, stinky thoughts and breath, the whole works—which in mine book isn’t especially useful, much less profitable or even prophetic.
I myself have the tendency to leave well enough alone at least until a prophecy comes, so if They tell me They can pluck babies out of thin air, then it’s OK by me, if you know what I mean.
So anyway, there I was, walking down the street.
I think I had just stepped off a bus, at least according to a few scraps of dissolving memory I seemed to retain. That’s a familiar feeling, even if the details differed from any sort of retention that happens to linger before completely fading. The details always differ, just like all the other wispy bits of recall and present permanence that only partially hold the gaps together between the prophecies.
The chill of the day hit mine bones like I wasn’t wearing a scrap of clothing, even though I was.
I know that I was because I have this recurring dream I can’t seem to forget where I’m a young boy in a classroom, and I’m not wearing a scrap of anything, just mine birthday suit, and the dream gets all non sequitur after that, mine embarrassment giving way to a kind of perverse pleasure at being able to strut around with no clothing while everyone else has to wear pants and shirts and dresses and suits.
Dreams are far different from prophecies, of course, and they’re nothing at all like the dissolving day-to-day activities I once seemed to have been involved in.
In any case, I check myself quite often now—even though it may seem like a silly habit—to make sure that I’m dressed properly.
In this case, even with the chill breeze of autumn in the air, I was dressed quite reasonably in long, gray slacks and sturdy boots and a woolen sweater over a heavy T-shirt with a black watch cap covering mine head and a long, black and red plaid scarf to warm mine throat.
The wind was blowing but not especially hard, and as I walked I tried to get the blood circulating more. I pumped mine arms in and out over and over again, as if I was swimming through the cold, lifeless air, in an attempt to warm mine self.
That’s when I began to notice how many God awful pregnant women there were out and about on the streets.
To clarify, it wasn’t really or particularly awful to any God I knew of. That’s just a phrase I sometimes have to use, even though I don’t know why. So many women being pregnant may even be a celebration of God’s joy, in fact―which is what They were now telling everyone, although I couldn’t remember whether or not They’d told me.
But it still didn’t seem quite kosher to me that every other woman I saw had a noticeable bulge where it counted. And most of the rest had starry-eyed looks on their faces indicating they were lost in a dream of knitting tiny, woolen socks or hanging colorful mobiles above a crib or contemplating other mother-to-be things.
I finished mine walk and reported into work just like They told me to every day, and at the front desk the old guard Joe gave me a nod. He had rheumy eyes that peered at his newsprint tally of horses at the day’s races. They told Joe to do that, and so he did.
I went to mine cubicle, plugged into the machine, flicked and pressed the appropriate switches, and zonked out for the whole morning, doing the thing They told me to do until lunchtime. I don’t recall now what it was.
Then I was out on the streets again to grab some grub, and, once again, I couldn’t help but notice all the pregnant women. There seemed to be more of them now. They were all over the place. And then a strange thought struck me. I couldn’t see any children themselves, just pregnant mothers. I look and I looked, but I saw no one much younger than mine own self.
I checked within, and I couldn’t remember having seen any children for quite some time. In fact, I couldn’t recall EVER having seen a child.
In no uncertain terms, They were telling me that of course I had seen children.
I’d had dreams with children in them and had more than once that I’d been a child myself. But, now that I was thinking about it, when was the last time that I’d actually seen a real child with mine own eyes? Did I even know what a child looked like outside of mine dreams?
Lunchtime ended, and They were telling me and everyone else to go back to work and plug back into our machines.
I was thinking about doing just that, just like everyone else was doing—just like we all did every day—but then the prophecy came.
All bets are off when prophecies come. You can take that to the bank.
I suddenly found myself on a bus sitting next to a pregnant woman.
“You’re pregnant” I heard mine voice say, and the prophecy used mine hand to reach over and gently pat the woman’s belly.
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” the woman said, quickly pulling away from me.
“No, it’s true,” the prophecy said, using mine voice, “your child-to-be is special. She will break through the separation of selves and integrate the nation states, the religions, the corporations, the sexes.”
“Leave me alone,” she said, getting up and moving to the rear of the bus, fear mixed with disgust showing on her face.
I saw the bus driver glaring in the mirror at me like I was making a bad mistake, but the prophecy would not stop.
“The weather is changing radically,” it said through mine voice, “and it is time. Time to birth the ones who will usher in the Real.”
The driver didn’t say anything. He continued to glare and didn’t even blink.
It was all I could do to get off at the next stop without announcing to the whole bus that it wasn’t me who had been talking. But by that time the prophecy was over, and They were telling me it was time to get off, go home, and take mine pills and juice.
So I went home and did what They said, and after the pills and the juice, I felt OK.
There was something there still bothering me about all the pregnant ladies, but I let it pass, and soon it evaporated from mine mind.
Eventually I was lying down in bed and almost dreaming. And, even though I wasn’t supposed to remember much at all, I still could. The truth of the prophecy still rang in me as if it would never stop.
They of course applied a standard wearing-nothing-but-a-pair-of-blue-socks dream. I sat there in third-grade class listening to Mrs. Goodman’s lecture about similes and metaphors until she suddenly realized that I, unique among all mine classmates, was stark naked.
But I wasn’t stark naked, really. Not this time. I was wearing blue socks.
By the time I was rubbing the sleep out of mine eyes in the morning, the dream was fading away save for odd fragments of something almost important that I quickly forgot as I took mine shower, drank mine juice and pills, and got ready for the bus to go to work.
I walked from the bus stop to work and nod at Joe, the guard at the front desk, who squints back at me in response.
Everything else—even this that mine mind is thinking now—dissolves into shadows of nothingness. And mine heart can feel the next prophecy about to make use of me.