This is the terrible tale of what happens to those who dare to slumber after watching Little House on the Prairie and having orthopedic surgery.
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It is a hot day at the turn of the century in a large mid-western town- St. Paul, perhaps- and I am standing on the dusty, busy mainstreet watching two handsome, tall, and slender young men with tall black top hats walk down the wooden steps of the college building. My mother, a buxom lady with an alarming resemblance to Harriet Olsen, is telling me I need to marry one of them. I simply must snag one of them! Every girl in town is flirting with them- I must as well. “No, Mother, I can’t- this is wrong- I simply cannot marry either of those two boys…” “Why can’t you?” “There is something terrible about it! I can’t! I won’t!”
~I wake up, somehow very disturbed with the idea of marrying these two young men. Why, I don’t know. The dream is not scary. It’s quite pleasant. I have to try to sleep! I drift off again… ~
“But darling, they are so refined,” says Mother, “and they write poetry! On little pieces of white paper! You have to get them to write poetry about YOU!” “No! NO, NO, NO! It’s impossible… it wouldn’t be legal to marry them; I have a feeling it wouldn’t…”
~I wake up again- who knows how many times I wake up- and say to the dark room, out loud, that this is just a dream and it’s NOT disturbing and I should just allow it to dream itself and allow myself to sleep! I lie down again… ~
“Why can’t you marry one of those handsome, slender young men? Name me one good reason why.” “Because… because… um, because I think they might be- my brothers, or something.” I am getting closer to the reason this dream is disturbing! I KNOW I am somehow very closely related to these two mysterious young men, and a marriage would be tragic. Although I’ve never read any of their small white papers of poetry, I somehow feel I have an intimate knowledge of it.
~Again and I awake and realize finally the reason I am so disturbed by my mother’s scheme. The two slender young men are my two now very skinny legs, their top hats my long black thick boots, and their poetry is written on the numerous large squares of white gauze held next to my incisions with a long wrapped bandage. I shake my head, force my eyes awake, and declare to the bedroom that these are not young men with poetry, they are legs with bandages. They are appendages of my own body, despite the fact that I can’t feel them or move them! THEY ARE THEY ARE THEY ARE! But the bedroom seems to ignore my insistent ranting, and I reluctantly fall asleep again, to be heckled the whole night in Walnut Grove by Mrs. Olsen, who cannot be made to understand that the young men are my brothers, OR that they are my legs.~
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Brought to you by MaryAnna H., the girl who was in the car crash; the girl who has retardedly long hair; the girl who attends some small chapel; the girl who insists on being in love with the wrong people; that girl you’ve been praying for because she’s a friend of your friend; you know, THAT girl?
