Remembering

I wake up on a river, and I don’t know why or when I got here, I’m scared, I don’t remember much; I remember my name, Rivy, Rivy Moon is my name. I sit up and look around; I don’t know where I am, I'm am in the middle of nowhere.

It’s a blistering heat here; it must be summertime. I have a pounding headache, and I am thirsty, like really thirsty. I get up and crawl over to the water and make a cup with my hands and take large gulps.

After that, I self-evaluate; I have minor cuts everywhere like I ran through a field of roses, some of them are still bleating. I have fresh bruises and old ones; they’re all around me. What happened to me?

I stand up and look around; all I see is water, sand, and a jungle. No form of civilization, well, that isn’t very good. I don’t see anything more, so I start walking. I pick a direction and go that way.

“Mommy, can we play, please?” Liam nervously asks.

“What do you want to play?” I reply.

“Can we play… hide-and-seek?”

“Sure, 1. . . ”

His eyes went big.

“2. . . . ”

He starts panicking, looking around for a hiding spot.

“I not ready,” he yelps

“3. . . ”

He runs out of the room to hide;

“4. . .” I giggle out,

I’ve been wandering for, I think, 4 perhaps 5 hours, and I haven’t seen any form of population. My legs throb, and I’m hungry; whenever it gets unbearable, I drink some of the jungle water.

In the distance, I think I see someone, but I think it’s my eyes playing tricks on me, so I keep walking.

I find a tree and lay down in the shade. It’s starting to get dark. I’m scared; I don’t know if there are any wild animals out here, and if there are, I hope there are vegetarians.

There was no moon, but the stars are coming out, they’re so pretty, the whole sky is filled to the brim with them, there’s so many that I can’t even find any constellations. I stay here for the entire night, admiring them, watching them go around.

By the time dawn comes, I’m fast asleep.

“Come on, mom, let’s go, let’s go,” Liam begs, pulling me out the door.

“Let’s go, hun.” Seth, my husband, said softly.

“Mom lets goooooooooo,” he said, pulling me to the door. “you promised, “ he huffs

“Did I? I don’t know, did I, baby?” I ask Seth.

“You did, you did!” my little Liam says.“Ok, fine, let’s go,” I said, laughing.

We get to the car. I buckle him in while Seth starts the car. While we’re driving, I’m in the back with Liam.

“Can we go faster?” Liam says

“No, Liam, we have to obey the speed limit.”

“Why?” he asks.

“Because we have to,” I say.

I wake up in the afternoon. The sun is closer towards the west; it might be 3, almost 4. I get up and start walking again. As I continue walking, I realize that I’m coming towards a thicker part of the jungle. I continue walking at a steady pace. When I get there, it looks very intimidating. I decide that ill walk next to the water and try not to get more lost than I am already am, so I continue.

We arrive about 10 min later. I unbuckle Liam. He’s bouncing so much.

“Are you excited?” I ask.

“Yes, let’s go,” he says, hoping to the entrance.

I look and see ‘upaws animal shelter’ in big, bold letters. We have wanted a puppy for a while now. We were waiting for Liam to get a little bit bigger before we got one. And now that he is, we can, and we can say that he is so excited to get one.

“Mommm, come on,” he said from the doorway.

I walked up and opened the door for little Liam because the door handle was too

high

for him to reach. As soon as we walk in, we hear the dogs barking, the cats meowing, and birds

tweeting. It’s deafening, so loud that it sounds like a party. It’s earsplitting. The person working here looks so tired like she is about to fall asleep. She probably had the night shift.

“Hello, What can I do for you,” she said in a fake, forced happy voice,

“Hi, we had an appointment. Do you still have ‘Diesel’ he’s a german shepherd, 3 years old?”

“Yes, we do still have diesel. He’s super nice,” she said

“Yay,” Liam said in an overly happy voice,

I realize that I’ve been walking for almost 4, maybe 3 days, and nothing has happened, I’ve been remembering little by little, but I still don’t know why I’m here, or where here is.

Am I dreaming???