Free Velveteen by Saul Tanpepper

VERYONE WAS SICK in those days, after my baby brother died— Mama and Daddy. Miss Ronica.
    Even me.
    Especially me.
    We were all sick, and we were dying.
    They didn’t know it, but I did, though not till right near the very end. But long before that, I could smell it something terrible.
    I remember, during one of those clear moments, right before it happened, when the fever wasn’t so thick in my head that I couldn’t think straight, I remember looking out my bedroom window onto the street and seeing it everywhere. Smelling it, the sickness.
    Everyone was running, trying to escape. The neighbors, Mister Sam, who left his champion laying chickens to starve in their coops after he’d made such a fuss over them. Most people were running. Mama and Daddy, too.
    But you can’t escape from what’s inside of you, no matter how fast you are or how long you run.
    Later, looking out the car window on the day we tried to leave but couldn’t, you could tell they were getting tired by then. You could see it in everyone’s eyes, not wanting to give up.
    All they had to do was stop. If they’d just stop, they’d get the cure. But they didn’t know that then, or didn’t want to believe it. Nobody did, and by the time I’d figured it out for them, it was too late.
    there is no cure
    Adults only believe what they want to believe and nothing else. That’s just the plain old truth of it.
    I already knew about death, even before all of this happened. I knew because, like I said, it had happened to my little baby brother.
    I don’t like thinking about it much, but I have to so I don’t forget.
    The animals were first, days and weeks before the people. Even before the bat, I’m sure. I saw them being sick, though maybe I didn’t realize just exactly what it was yet. The signs were all around.
    Mama and Daddy didn’t see them, or they pretended they didn’t. They were too busy fighting with each other to care anything about the animals. But I saw.
    I saw.
    sweet dreams, baby
    I didn’t understand it at first. I was too scared like everyone else, right up until after Ben Nicholas died, which is when I finally knew it wasn’t just the people in my house or on my street or even just
    a thing that happens
    on this whole long island where we used to live.
    Where did they all go afterward, the ones who got cured?
    It’s been so quiet here for so long that I can hardly remember what my Mama’s voice sounds like anymore.
    Only Daddy’s: Stay here, sweetheart. We’ll come back for you, I promise.
    And the terrible sad sound of Mama’s crying when the door closed for the last time, just like after my little baby brother.
    sweet dreams
    After Ben Nicholas died, I . . . .
    I couldn’t save him like I did me. It was too late, by then. But it doesn’t mean he’s gone forever. That’s what I realized. So I’ve been waiting
    a long, long time
    to make him Real.
    I remember being afraid before I was better again. Afterward, walking to the cemetery to see my brother for the last time. No Mama or Daddy that time, just me. I wasn’t afraid no more. I wasn’t afraid because I knew how to fix things.
    It’s strange. I remember being afraid, but I don’t remember the feeling of it, like watching a movie of myself with the sound turned all the way down. I remember thinking: Mama and Daddy are sick, and I’m sick. They’ll be better if they just stop running. But not me. If I stop, I’ll die. I was already too deep inside of myself by then and couldn’t speak on the outside no more, not even with my inside voice, because my tongue wouldn’t work. I couldn’t tell them what I was so afraid of.
    Before Ben Nicholas died, I honestly didn’t want to live no more. But afterward . . . .
    Well, everything changed afterward, didn’t it?
    Mama and Daddy will come back for me, now that they know, too. After they get the cure.
    I couldn’t just leave him like that.
    So I fixed it. Fixed myself.
    I’m not scared anymore. I’m not anything.