/yesod

Tag: children

  • “She won’t rest.”

    —

    by

    T.M. Camp
    in

    My daughter is almost nine but we still use a monitor so that we can hear her if she wakes up in the middle of the night. My wife has gone to bed and I am up late, doing some work I brought home from the office. The monitor crackles and my daughter calls for…

  • feet wrapped in rags

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    by

    T.M. Camp
    in

    …the children come out from the alcoves and holes, ragged scavenger ghosts huddled together and shuffling along the dusty floor, their hollow eyes sweeping back and forth, mouths gaping . . . they are in thrall to an old woman, an older ghost, who herds them like cattle and feeds off of their misery… I…

  • a tornado, two corpses, and a leather sofa

    —

    by

    T.M. Camp
    in

    Inside the house, people are starting to panic. The sky outside is dark and green, the wind bending the trees to almost impossible angles. We can hear the sirens and, in a house this old, there is no safe place . . . every room has windows, the elderly frame flexes and creaks in the…

  • dark ride

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    by

    T.M. Camp
    in

    I am surprised to see a Ferris wheel looming over the downtown district, pale against the darkening sky. As evening descends, we make our way towards the carnival. It is dark everywhere. There are no flickering lights, no music — just the mechanical clack and clank of the rides, the muted murmur of the crowds.…

  • comedy and tragedy

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    by

    T.M. Camp
    in

    …when the comedian pulls up in the Winnebago, I hop in. We chat and get acquainted while his two cats prowl around in back. A few hours on the road and I realize we’re not going to get back home in time for me to help out with the baby’s bedtime. I’m embarrassed to say…

  • Sunday nap

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    by

    T.M. Camp
    in ,

    …there are three children playing at the curb, jumping in and out of a deep puddle of mud and dirt. The oldest of these, perhaps eight years old, stops in the midst of bossing the other two around and turns as he notices me… …and a man’s voice tells me “Look to the world around…

  • daycare rescue

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    by

    T.M. Camp
    in

    Somehow, I have become two people. There is the adult version of me, as I am now. And there is the teenaged version of me. Together, we are plotting to rescue my youngest daughter from her daycare. The details of why she needs rescuing aren’t explained but, armed to the teeth and sick with worry,…

  • the dancing toy

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    by

    T.M. Camp
    in

    …disturbing discoveries in the new house continue as we settle in. (I should mention that this is not our actual house, not the new house we moved into earlier this year, but some alternate, dreamspace version that has that same-but-not-the-same quality which you only find in dreams.) There is the painting in the upstairs bedroom,…

  • an uncomfortable visit

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    by

    T.M. Camp
    in

    …shocked at how seedy the old neighborhood looks, I feel a pang of survivor’s guilt over my own relatively comfortable life now. Through the open door of the apartment, I can see that our old neighbors are sitting down to dinner. I’m stunned for a moment to find that the little boy my son used…

  • nephew, demon

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    by

    T.M. Camp
    in

    [This is directly transcribed, without changes or edits, from a journal entry dated September 12th, 2001] And in my dream my three-year-old nephew [REDACTED] — plagued by depression and despair all his short little life — has finally given into his despair, twisting a length of picture hanging wire around his neck and hanging himself.…

  • brief despair

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    by

    T.M. Camp
    in

    [This is directly transcribed, without changes or edits, from a journal entry dated August 10th, 1998] …horrid dreams, my two children poisoned and dead in their coffins, and no one to save me from my despair…

  • wedding errand

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    by

    T.M. Camp
    in

    Walking through a parking lot towards a line of children. Accosted, my money taken. Finally convincing them to let me go — “Please, I’m getting married today.” Amazingly — I’m released. But the ceremony has started and I’m late. Putting on a tuxedo in the great underground empire while searching for a washcloth. Sent on…