Awakening at Dawn

He lies on his back. His arms and legs are sprawled wide, his short brown hair clings to his turned to the side head sweaty and tousled. A thin trickle of saliva runs from his mouth onto the sheet, while the pillow slipped out from under his head a long time ago. He sleeps the carefree, peaceful sleep of a five-year-old, guarded by fairies.

The dawn light filters through the dark brown curtain, where wrinkles and creases alternate with the herringbone pattern of the synthetic fabric. It is very ugly, but there is no money to change it, no money to make the child's room more colourful or inviting. Perhaps there is no desire for it either, certainly not on the child's part.

He would like galloping horses on the walls and steamships on the curtains, or maybe puppies, but above all, he wants to see magnificent manes streaming in the wind, wild bodies frothing from the gallop, and hooves kicking up dust all around him, because he is going to be a horseman when he grows up, and a ship's captain who travels the world, on a steamship, of course. He will stand at the stern, feet planted firmly, commanding the sailors to do their work; and in every port, he will have a horse to gallop across the meadows with, while his men fill the ship's belly with all manner of earthly treasures, goods to be sold or traded at the next port.

This is the plan. Its details fully worked out. Spanning the time from his future adulthood to the end of his life; yet for now, he is merely a child or so everyone says. He must eat well to grow strong, sleep well to grow big, and study hard to grow wise enough to strike good bargains with merchants on the shore and with the pirates who might stalk him on the open seas, but demonstrating immense courage, he saves the ship and the entire crew with a well-devised trick.

For the moment, however, he is still asleep. He breathes softly in the gloom of early dawn, while his eyelashes, the tiny black strands, protectively guard the dream behind his closed eyelids, that found him in the darkness of the night.

The clock ticks quietly on the wall. Its face is the belly of a brown horse that smiles and winks down from under a cowboy hat. On the table sits a papier-mâché steamboat, painted blue with watercolors, its funnel is black and the name "Ráró" scrawled on its side in felt-tip pen. His clothes are laid out on the chair, awaiting their little master's awakening; beside them stands a packed suitcase, ready for the journey, and a bit further off, by the threshold, a pair of dark blue sandals sits neatly side by side.

He smiles in his sleep. Perhaps at this very moment, he is being lifted onto the back of the milk-horse, which roams the village at his grandparents' place, and hanging its gentle head under the blazing sun, it carries the light little children's bodies from house to house, accepting their petting, an apple or a carrot pressed to its mouth by tiny hands, who laugh in fright when it shakes itself or swats a fly with its tail. Its name, after its colour, is Frosty, yet in his mind he always calls it Leslie, because even a horse needs a name, indeed it needs one most of all. To have a name to call it by when they strike up a conversation, to greet it on its name day, to bid it farewell at summer's end, and to think of it all winter long, hoping it is waiting for him, for the summer and for the crisp apples.

He can almost hear the clatter of horseshoes on the stony road; he can feel the strong, warm body under his palm, the coarse coat, and the pulse of blood, that ceaseless rhythm driven by the heart, that industrious organ sustaining our lives. So the clattering grows louder and stronger, as if Leslie were approaching in a mind dancing on the borders of dreams, from which his eyelashes now rise slowly, trembling with difficulty. His mind listens still heavy with sleep; his eyes gaze dreamily in a daze; his body tries to wake, yet sleep still pulls it back, clinging to his hands and legs like a dense marsh, kissing his brow with the touch of sweet little sprites.

But the clatter breaks through every barrier; he sits up awake in bed, then kneels by the window above, slips behind the curtain, and his grogginess turns into a wide smile as he hears the horseshoes clattering sluggishly, leisurely, while the junk dealer's cart passes the house.