dreams IV

i dreamed last night that i was racing through the woods with my mother, brothers, and sister. we were sitting behind horses on a wooden cart like the ones that carried prisoners to the guillotine during the french revolution. there was a man lying on the back in revolutionary dress, bright reds and blues and a plumed hat. he was unconscious and bleeding from the chest.

as we rumbled through the trees, running away from something, he turned paler and paler until we stopped beneath some white apple trees and watched him die. we were in an orchard, and as we stood there, wondering where to bury the dead man we had rescued in vain, my mother had a miscarriage.

the baby passed quickly and quietly, and my youngest brother turned to me and said, "we must give up our children as well." he took pincers, forced them down my throat, and pulled out a tiny fetus the size of a finger. i began to bleed. it looked like a gumdrop. he dropped it beneath an apple tree in full blossom, and then i woke up, a piercing pain in my throat.