Cuento de Mi Id

“Bloodwaters”

It was a hot summer day and the sky was raining blood. Lots of it. A regular gullywasher. I ran inside as soon as it started and stared defiantly at the dark clouds from the safety of my bedroom window. But the blood did not cease falling.

In panic, I watched as the rain continued on and on, creating puddles out of dry patches and ponds out of puddles. The storm drains were regurgitating their unabsorbed contents into the city streets, transforming them into crimson canals... The front lawn became a scarlet lake and as the rising fluid began to pour over the curbs, I suddenly thought about Mom and Dad and how they were supposed to be coming home from work soon.

I ran for the kitchen phone and dialed my Dad’s work number. A busy signal answered so I tried Mom. Halfway through dialing, the phone went dead. So did the lights.

I ran out to the living room to examine the neighbors’ lights, but their houses were just as dark as mine. A part of me wondered idly about the conductibility of plasma and then I remembered the flood outside and how close it had been to my house.

By then, the red rain had reached the front hall. I had never seen rain flow uphill before but then this was not normal rain. I tried pushing it away with a mop but that only seemed to encourage it. So I ran.

I ran to my sanctuary of sanctuaries -- my bedroom. I huddled there on the bed in a panic. I thought idly of climbing out the window and escaping through the back yard but one glance outside showed me that the blood was just as deep out there as it was up front. So, like a dummy, I just sat there and prayed that God would make it go away. But He didn’t.

By then, the rain had begun to seep into my bedroom from beneath the door. I watched in horror as it darkened the nice clean white carpet and in desperation, I took my shoes off and climbed upon the bed, hoping upon hope that I had chosen the highest point in the room. The rain continued to flow in. The carpet by then was saturated with pink fluid and had begun to resemble a small pond. I thought about making a break for it across the squishy carpet but somehow the thought of touching it with my bare feet just seemed too much.

Then the bloodwaters rose higher and the room was covered with rich, flowing blood. I looked around in vain for a dry spot, certain now that I must escape that room or drown. But there was no place to go that was not already shin-deep in blood.

Eventually the fluid reached as high as the top of the bed. I drew back, climbing upon the pillows as if their combined height would save me from the rising tide.

By now it was so high that it was breaking out the window in my bedroom. Some of the fluid flowed out but much more flowed in. So I climbed atop my headboard and made a grab for the overhead light.

My fingers slipped. I lost my balance and fell. The plasma poured over me as I fell into it and when I tried to scream, it filled my mouth.

What will my parents think, I thought as I lost consciousness. What will my parents thin --

***********************************************************

At that point, the alarm clock rang. I awoke and noticed that there was no blood in my room. The window was still intact and there was no blood anywhere on my person.

I smiled, got up and went across the hall to the children’s bathroom to pee.

The door was open. Something inside smelled. One of my sisters had left her clothes all over the floor and it smelled as if she had forgotten to drain the bathtub after her morning shower.

I smelled something too. Like blood. And pee. And some other odors I wasn’t sure I wanted to identify.

I remembered my dream and shook my head. That had been just my imagination.

Perhaps my older sister Lupe was playing a trick on me -- though how she could have possibly known about my dream, I did not stop to ponder. Instead I turned and opened the shower curtain on the bathtub.

Someone had indeed forgotten to drain the bathtub and it didn’t just hold water. Instead it held Lupe’s naked body, her bloody wrists still staining the water a color that resembled the fluid I had seen in my dreams.

At that point, I opened my mouth to scream. But then I slipped and fell into the bathtub, at which point my sister’s blood started to pour into my mouth.