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Cardamon woke up in the middle of the night. His mom was dead. No, she was asleep. She was asleep and she wouldn’t wake up, not even when he fed her a wish crystal. She was so asleep that she looked like she was dead. That she looked like she might die. He was sure of it.
Cardamon didn’t want to go back to sleep. What if he slept like that too? Comatose, with nobody who knew to try and find him? What if they did find him, and they thought he was dead?
He didn’t want to get up, either. He was a landlord, like his mom used to be. If he got up, he’d have to check on the houses and collect the rent and pay the bills. He’d have to do the laundry and get the groceries and all of the other adult things that his mom would’ve done.
And the tears. The tears from the wish crystal. He’d have to clean up all the tears, but there’d be too many. They’d keep piling up, making so much of a mess in his house that he couldn’t get out the door. The tears would do weird things to his plants, so he’d have to drag them to the ocean in huge trash bags that were four times his size. He’d have to sleep on a bed made of his mom’s tears.
He laid in his bed for what felt like a very long time. It was dark, too dark to see anything clearly. But the pictures on his walls looked like they could see him clearly. Were their eyes following him? What was that white thing in his closet? Why was it so bright? Was it a ghost? Were the things on his walls and in his closet and that covered his floor going to come and get him? And since his mom was asleep, would he have to handle them himself? That was silly. If he was going to be an adult and a landlord, he couldn’t be afraid of fake things like ghosts, no matter how real they looked.
Cardamon mustered all his courage and crept out of his room, closing the door quietly. He crept down the hall to his mom’s room, guided by a single night light, but paused when he reached the door. What if his mom really was asleep? What if she really was hooked up to all those wires? What if he opened that door and an avalanche of tears spilled out?
He curled up outside the door, unsure of what to do. He couldn’t go back, but he was scared to go forward. It felt like it had been longer than forever when he finally got up and pushed the door open, just a crack.
“Mama?” He whisper-yelled into the darkness. “It’s me, Cardamon.”
No response.
He tentatively stepped inside.
“Mama? Maaaaamaaaaa?”
“Ah!” A slightly startled gasp came from the covers. “Oh, Cardamon. You scared me.”
He ran up to the bed without hesitation and buried his face in the pillow, tears starting to pool at the edges of his vision. At least they weren’t his mom’s.
“What’s wrong? Did you have a bad dream?”
He nodded.
“Wanna tell me about it?”
He shook his head. If it wasn’t real, then he didn’t have to think about it. It was too scary to think about.
“Okay. Why don’t you sleep in here tonight?”
He scurried around the bed and crawled in on the other side. It was warm under his mom’s thick comforter. So toasty, yet the pillow was so cool. The perfect temperature for sleep. He closed his eyes and tried to rest.
His mom had just started to nod off when she heard a small voice coming from beside her, thick with tears. All the hiccuping and coughing that came with this sort of heavy bawling made it difficult to decipher his words.
“Ma- mama?”
“Mhm-hm?”
“Can I tell you about my dream now?”
“Only if you want to.”
“In my dream, you- you were asleep and- and you wouldn’t wake up so I had to do all the stuff that you do. An- and you kept crying tears, they didn’t really look like tears, but the- the dream said they were tears anyways. They were sparkly and had pictures of the things that you were dreaming about inside of them, and they made the plants all creep- creepy.”
His mom pulled him closer. “That sounds like it was really scary. I’m okay, I promise. You’re just a kid, so you can do all the kid things you want for as long as you want. How does that sound?”
Cardamon sniffled. “Can I stay with you in case the dream comes back?”
“Of course. Do you want a lullaby?”
He nodded again.
“Alright then.”
His mom’s singing voice was lovely, a far cry from her usual slightly raspy tone. If the sound were tied to a picture, he imagined her voice would look like sitting in a hammock by the sea while watching the sun set, the last rays of the day kissing your face as they dipped behind purple clouds.
“The king of the heavens
Sits up on his throne
Carefully watching
The kingdom he’s grown
The witch rides her broom
Whilst slumbering deep
The safety of dreamers
It’s her job to keep
Lost in the woods
Of the garden’s hedge maze
Happily the princess
Wanders for a ways
Asleep in his crib
The prince is alone
But the witch watches closely
His presence is known”
Cardamon fell asleep before the rest of the song could be finished. His breath calmed to a steady in and out, warm air mixing in the space between him and his mom. She cuddled him tightly to let him know he was loved.
***
The next day, Cardamon didn’t remember anything about the dream at all. His mom went to work as a landlord, and Ms. Bee walked him and Sticky to school. He turned in the field trip permission slip that his mom had signed to Ms. Coffee, and went to play with his friends before class. Claire was his best friend. They were both rather smart, and she was silly where he was serious. They were sure that their games of pretend would’ve gone down in the hall of fame had there been one for that particular subject. Under the responsible and watchful eyes of his teachers, his class had a great time on their beach trip.
That night, all his mom’s friends came over for dinner. They asked him a ton of questions about how school was and how he was doing, which he was more than happy to answer. Everyone kept trying to give him a little more food, even when he said he was full, and Mr. Deckard snuck him an extra slice of cake when no one was looking. His mom sent him to bed at a reasonable time, despite his protests to stay up later and visit longer. He slept peacefully and comfortably, while the world where his mother wouldn’t wake up was left in the same place as all the other forgotten and discarded things.
At the bottom of the sea.