Explode the Moment

My cousin and I were pushing a baby carriage down the dirt road when everything went blurry. Dance club disco ball spins in my vision and consciousness, only I was too young to disco. It was 1980 and disco was not yet retro, but at five, who even knows what retro means. These things become prior knowledge at thirty-five, but back to the dirt road. Surely I felt pain, but the initial shock of a bee sting on your eye lid, instinctively shutting to protect the pupil. The swelling came later.

Aunt Chris said I would live. I didn’t have allergies like my cousins that I knew of, but I haven’t thought of that bee sting for years. Bzzzz. Onomatopoeia. That’s not how it sounded at the time. Can’t remember a rhyme. Give me a dime. Or a dollar to holler. Seemed like a lot to a kid, this brush with death, this dance of pain, brushing the brain—schema from long ago.

Uncle Tom is now dead as of July. Cancer rotted through his eye of life with Aunt Chris, now alone, connected by phone to Michigan. Dreamt about him just this past week, blurry like the bee sting that summer day. Disco balls of consciousness clouding my brain, hurting to remember this strain.