The View Under Water

Sophie had a big seizure while I read to her this morning, and I couldn't summon up the energy to care in the way we want to care. Here we go. Sometimes when Sophie has a big seizure, I go nearly numb, my mind blank. I go through the motions, but I'm not really there. On mornings like this one, I imagine my old brain and body begins its tiresome cortisol rush -- start pumping the heart! put the stone in her throat! push water out the eyes! slow down the lungs! let the blood flow! -- but sees the body is calm, even bored. She's done this before! It's one of those times!  There's no fight nor flight. The orders are withdrawn. I hold Sophie, tell her quiet things, tell her nothing at all.

A host is someone who welcomes a stranger or a friend, takes charge of the stranger and the friend, takes care of her. A host, though, is also an animal or organism on which a parasite resides. I feel like a host sometimes, the second kind. I lay next to Sophie when she was done and brushed my hand over her forehead, closed my own eyes and then opened them, looked up with her, as her. A jellyfish hung and swayed in the air, a mermaid looked down, the air rippled as if it were water and could be broken through, maybe, toward light.