I worked in a small town, at a candy store. I was one of the sellers, and this customer got into the store and asked me to look after his baby while he chose what he wanted to buy. Like the diligent employee I was, I immediately took him into my arms and started bouncing him around and singing silly songs.
He was a lovely baby; blonde and rosy and healthy and giggly. Then I turned around and the store was closing and oh fuck: I still had the baby. I decided to look out for him until the father came back. I was sure he would.
I looked out for him for days, we played and we ate and I bought baby clothes and he would show me things around the store I never noticed. He had a keen eye for them. The father never showed, and I started losing the enthusiasm I had at first. But it wasn't that it became a chore I started resenting or anything; I just sporadically forgot about him. I'd go out and then rushed back to the apartment after a few hours because I suddenly remembered he existed, and he existed inside my apartment. Every time I found him after forgetting him, he'd be grumpy or sad, and bruised. The more hours I forgot about him, the more bruised he'd be.
At some point I took a trip and left him for a whole day, and when I came back, after remembering, I found him sitting on a chair just staring at a wall. I checked him all over, and didn't find any bruises, but then he started coughing and I opened his mouth and it was full of blood. His gums had been cut right open and then sewed back and the wounds were still fresh and there was blood all over the place. I touched his small baby teeth and they melted like sugar. I looked up at his face and he had huge bags under his eyes and his gorgeous blue eyes were suddenly entirely black and he looked at me with quiet resignation. He started swallowing his own blood. I thought I was going to be sick so I rushed to the bathroom and there I forgot about him again. I didn't even mean to. I just did, and took off my clothes and shoes as I always do and took a bath. For hours. Days. Until I suddenly remembered about him again, and jumped out of the tub and went looking for him.
He wasn't on the chair. He wasn't anywhere. He wasn't on the chair, around the apartment. Nowhere. No traces of blood. No baby clothes. I looked under the couch and when I lifted my head I felt a stinging pain in my mouth. I put my finger in it and it was full of blood. I got up and rushed to a mirror and saw that my gums had been cut like the baby's, and they had also been sewed back together sloppily. I started noticing I was covered in bruises. My eyes were completely black. My blood tasted bitter.
I never found him.
When I went back to work the next day the father came back asking about his son and I pretended to not know a thing. He seemed quite content with this answer, but before he left he grabbed my wrist and wrote something on my arm, too quickly for me to understand what was going on, and then left with the same speed.
Don't try to handle things that are too good for you
Don't try to handle things that are too good for you
Swallow your limitations
Don't try to handle things that are too good for you
Sometimes you are not as much as you think
Accept. it is okay and it is not okay
I looked at the words without really understanding them and decided they made a pretty bracelet. I felt as if half of my brain had been suddenly sucked off.
I don't know, but now I'm awake I need to go find a baby to hug.