I can smell cinnamon and evergreen. It's cozy and warm and I'm upstairs and I can feel the hard wood railing in my right hand. It's Christmas again. It's always Christmas here. I love this part of my brain. I can't always get to it when I'm awake, and part of it is closed to me when I'm dreaming.

I have confirmed my parents are asleep. I want to tiptoe down the stairs. I want to peek at the presents. I want to see father Christmas. Sheng Dan Lao Ren. Saint Nicholas. Even though he died a millenium ago, I'm supposed to be expecting him. This is a haiku of my life. A breath I have captured for myself that I breathe in and out again when I need to. It's before I begin walking down the stairs. It's after I have left my parent's bedroom, after I carefully closed door. After hearing my father snore and my mother mumble incoherently for three syllables. It sounded like any one of two thousand three hundred and seventy-four possible words in three different languages, but none of them are conclusive. She just mumbled. He snored. They were asleep. I close the door. I turn and walk towards the railing, and tippytoe towards the stairs.

What I do not know yet is that my brother Simon is already downstairs. He has already opened one of the presents. He did what I wanted to do, but although at first I am perturbed, next I become relieved, because it means he is going to get in trouble instead of me.

He is trying desperately to ascertain how to put the present back together so that his misdeed will remain unknown and go unpunished. He doesn't know I'm coming down the stairs. I do not know what I will see when I reach the bottom of the stairs. The knowledge of what I know about the future does color this haiku of a moment. This inhalation and exhalation at the top of the stairs, but it's like a permanent.. smirkle. The anticipation of what I knwo I will find, coupled with the anticipation of what I thought I might find. On so many levels, this is perhaps my favorite breath that I have ever breathed, and I play it over and over again in my mind when I.. when I.. when I..

I am standing at the top of the stairs. The wooden railing is under my right hand, like an old friend it is always there. There is a marble in my pocket. I am touching it with my left hand. It is cold against my skin, lost against my fingers. It is a small blue thing made of china glass. I have since lost it, but it is forever found in my left hand, as I am about to take a step down the stairs.

Then the stairs are gone. The pitterpatter of my feet into the den from the foyer are gone. They took them. They. With their blue hands they took them. After the haiku at the top of the stairs I next see myself standing by Simon now, but I have metal spokes coming out of my head in many different angles, like radiation from a daystar in the glare. Don't look directly into the light because you will ruin your retinas. Don't look in the light. The light. The memory is like an old vid played on malfunctioning equiptment.

Simon is crying. Older than me and he is crying. The packaging is ruined. Mother and father are going to find out. He is trying to tape it back together but it is ruined. They are going to know. They will be upset.

"I told you," I hear myself say. Another me. One without metal spokes in my head. I see a me in pink pajamas with the padded feet. "I told you not to take from under the tree. Don't look in the closet either. It's greedy. It's not in the spirit of the holiday."

He looks at me but I don't remember what I see. Instead I used to see a machine. Lenses for eyes and wires for a mouth. Then for a time I saw nothing. Now I see someone else. Someone I do not recognize. Dark hair like my brother, but one of his eyes is missing and has been replaced with an eye.

I can smell cinnamon and evergreen, wafting from downstairs. It's cozy and warm and I'm at the top of the stairs. I hold a shiny blue marble in my left hand. I hold the railing in my right hand. I am anticipating. I am secure in the knowledge that my mother and father love me. I am going to sneak down and look at the shiny presents. I am going to...

He had an eye for an eye. He had an eye for an eye. He had an eye for an eye. He had an eye for an eye.

I am in a basement. Grundgy place. It has antique appliances which appear to be used to clean clothes. There's a mattress here. There are two people in the bed. One person is snoring and the other person has just mumbled incoherently for three syllables. Then there is a long pause where time doesn't seem to pass. It's grundgy, but its curiously peaceful.

"Remember this moment Xander," I hear him whisper to himself. I step back and bump into something. It makes noise.

He sits up in his bed. His companion turns over in her sleep. She has dark hair but she will have light hair and then it will be dark again.

He's wearing no shirt. He's wearing the same face that Simon was wearing when he was supposed to be wearing the machine. His eyes are wide and looking right at me. Both of his eyes are real, even though I know one of them will not be. His hands reach up to his face and he rubs his eyes.

I can smell cinnamon and evergreen.

"Hey!"

I can feel his hand on my hand at the bannister.

"What're you doin' in my bed.. room? Where's my bedroom?"

I turn and look at him. We are at the top of the stairs. I can smell cinnamon and evergreen.

"You're not wearing any clothes," I say to him.

He gets a worried look.

I hear them coming.

We look down the stairs and the men in the white uniforms which should have red blood on them but never do are rushing into the downstairs with men in business suits and blue hands. They are walking all over my dream. They are crushing the presents under their feet. They push over the Christmas tree and they put this big console where the fireplace used to be, so Saint Nicholas cannot defy the laws of physics to meet me.

"That's not right," he says. I agree with him.

He grabs a blanket out of the air. The same blanket I saw when I was in his basement, but I didn't see it. He must have seen it with his other eye. Distantly I hear the voice of an old soul protest the sudden disappearance of the blanket.

He wraps himself in the blanket. He wears it like a robe. I hear the word toga from his head.

I am in the room, sitting in the chair. The metal spokes are in my head. I can't move. I hear the man say, "does this hurt" and then it hurts. It hurts a lot.

The man in the blanket makes an unintelligible noise. Then he throws up. Then he gets mad.

The man wearing the white which should have red on it but never does asks me again. "Does this hurt?"

I hear myself screaming. I am screaming. I scream.

The man in the blanket gets very angry.

"Hey jerk."

The man wearing white which should be red but never is turns around and faces the man in the blanket.

"DOES THIS HURT?"

The man in the blanket hits the man wearing white which should be red but never is. I see the face of the man wearing white struck by the fist of the man wearing the blanket. The man wearing white now has blood running from his face and it spills from his nose onto the white.

He looks good in red.

The man in the blanket steps over the fallen man in white. He takes my right hand. He starts undoing the restraints.

He says, "dunno what's goin' on but we're gettin' outta here--"

I can smell cinnamon and evergreen. It's cozy and warm and I'm upstairs and I can feel the hard wood railing on my right hand. It's Christmas again. It's always Christmas here. I love this part of my brain. I can't always get to it when I'm awake, and part of it is closed to me when I'm dreaming.

He is here with me now. He has his hand on my right hand. I have a small blue marble in my left hand, getting lost against my fingers in the pocket of my padded pajamas. He's wearing a blanket. He calls it a toga. I heard him call it a toga, though he didn't hear himself. I think he's very nice. He seems a little confused.

We look down and there is a man wearing white that should be red and is. He looks up at us and his nose is red and his face is red and pink and beige and he is shouting at us though I don't care what he says. The man in the blanket shouts back too.

I take a step.

I am now by myself. It is just me and the bannister and the stairs and the breath before I was anticipating and loved and excited and trying to be quiet and I'm still all those things and more as I pitterpatter down the stairs. I'm riding gravity six inches at a time and there's a slight peep that comes out of my larynx but I suppress it as I feel the giddiness dancing inside my ribcage like a thousand fireflies blinking to music. It is a rapturous feeling. It is Christmas. I am equally glorified to realize this is the first time I've been able to remember this memory since they took it away with their blue hands and metal spokes. This is the first time I have felt the stairs in so long. I make my way to the landing. I catch my breath. I am smiling.

I make my way into the den. My brother is there. He opened one of the presents and is fighting back tears trying to figure out how to undo the damage he has done to his future. The man in the blanket is there. He's looking at my brother. He looks across the room. He points.

There is wrapping paper. The same kind as the present my brother opened.

"That'll work!" My brother whispered. My brother began rewrapping the present. I know my brother is not my brother. He is a memory of my brother. He is the echo that I haven't been able to see in this moment for so long, without seeing Them. Now he looks more real, but I know he is still just a memory and that's alright.

The man in the blanket kneels down and looks me in the eye. I can see in his eye and in his eye in place of an eye that he is more than just a memory. "Mind tellin' me what's goin' on?" He asks nicely but impatiently.

I beam. I can't help it. I'm happy. He's very nice.

TO BE CONTINUED