Potion

Laid down on his side and transported by air, from a parking lot facing a pond, to the exit only doors of the hospital, to forests he's never seen before and yet roads in distant countries that were oh too familiar to him; finally he is laid back down on the earth. He lay there on his back in his unfinished basement with his niece of only 3 years sitting on his chest and smiling. "Pick me up like a horsie!" And he does it. "Lock your arms around my legs" And he does it. But much more rapidly than expected her weight exhausts his shoulders and wrist and he lays her down, and himself against the cold concrete. Suddenly, he realized, she had grown, perhaps in his arms. He begins to tell her, as he focuses her attention on the series of pencil strokes drawn against the load bearing pillar, that the last time she came over she was "this high," and that each time we measured her she asked if now it was time for the horse ride. So maybe a foot or so higher than the previous strokes, "we put this watch here so you would know that it's always time for a horse ride." He closed his eyes within closed eyes, and thought to himself, "I could be a father."

He rolled on his side as she skipped away and smiled, and again he was lifted, but this time directly upwards, through the floorboards and ended up just outside his mother's room. Unsure if he should be there or what she would say to him for interrupting her few moments if silence she gets in this house, he every gently went from laying to sitting, and then sitting to standing. He dare not take a step forward because the age of this house and subsequent creakiness of its floors surpasses his ninja abilities. He leaned over as far as he could towards her half opened door and caught a glimpse of the mirrors edge. He leaned in as far as he could and saw his mother's reflection. She was standing there shirtless, offering a clear inference that she was completely naked, or perhaps in only undergarments as she was a true lady, but he could only see upwards from just below her shoulders. All he needed to see was that she was smiling. She was clearly gazing upon her own body, aged and filled with stories, and each line of skin and line of verse seemed to add to her smile. She gazed upon her body dipping her left shoulder, or perhaps right - mirrors, forward, and yet her smile remained perfectly still. His mom has lost weight, and immediately he got a sense of the feeling of accomplishment that fueled her smile. Good family, great career, nice home, were all goals that she had for her relationship with others and God. But losing weight, and having this body, the body she wants, was her own goal - it benefited nobody but herself, and that's why she was so happy she succeeded. He realized then that as he becomes a father he must also imbue himself with exactly this sense of satisfaction. He felt once again what he had not felt for so long, as a child, as her child, as someone with much to learn, and hence reason to live.

At this point his mind felt solved, and the spell wore off. He sat up in his sofa in the late PM on a Saturday afternoon and emerged a new man, made anew by the effects of this family potion created from cow parts, vegetable oil and chilli powder and beans.