Aaron scurried around the corner of grates, bars, and steel walls. Mr. Zygote marched from cell to cell banging his police stick against all the grates. Aaron hid under the gray circles and black boxes. He heard Mr. Zygote coming and slid under the floor to the next panel. But when he popped his head out he saw Mr. Zygote’s black boots march on by, so he popped right back down and slithered over five sections to another cell, this one all grates. And he stayed put.
He thought Zygote would call out for him, threaten him, but no sound came from him. All Aaron saw were the gray circles, black boxes, white walls, and silver grates. And then Zygote marched into the room above Aaron. And stood there. Looking down on Aaron under the grate. And laughing, more laughing, tapping the steel rod against his arms. His powerful arms, ten times the size of Aaron’s scrawny freckled limbs.
Aaron woke up in his childhood bedroom. Why, it had the same blue and orange wallpaper as when he was eight years old. And the same little brown desk and red chair. He felt for his crotch – and no pubic hairs! He’d gone back to his childhood. Maybe Mommy and Daddy were alive after all and he wouldn’t have to live with Aunt Wilhelmina’s governesses and go to private school. But when he ran outside his bedroom, he fell away from the dream and into a black void.
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