Island Boy

I lay in the darkness staring at the white ceiling wondering if the life I was living was real or if I had just fallen asleep and commenced to dream. There was an eerie silence all around me. The bed was soft with blue blankets draped over the white sheets. There was a desk with a chair on one side of the room and a chest of drawers on the other side. I had my hands behind my head and was gazing at the popcorn ceiling. There was a slight chill in the air, but I did not bother getting under the blankets.

If this was a dream, then why did the images of the airport, people crying, and the vivid scene of me climbing into a huge airplane seem so real? What were these strange feelings and thoughts occupying my mind? I knew that at any minute either my mother or auntie would come bursting through the door yelling, “Wake up; it’s time for school.” But I did not have a separate room or a bed. The four brothers slept on the floor inside the mosquito net in the front room. Moreover, this was a soft bed in a bedroom, and there was no mosquito net. Was I dreaming?

Ever since I first met Len on that sunny, balmy day in Suva, when two of my friends and I ditched school to go see the tourist ship that was anchored in the harbor, I often dreamt about how it would be to live in America. I would close my eyes and imagine that I was sitting in the living room of a big house with four or five rooms, lots of furniture, electricity, a telephone, and other modern conveniences. People always spoke about this place called America, where money practically grew on trees; everyone lived in large homes and drove big cars. However, somehow my current dream appeared to be more genuine than all of my previous ones.

            I must have fallen asleep because when I opened my eyes, I was not certain if this scenario was a dream or if I was merely waking up from a deep sleep. One thing was certain; I was still lying on the bed in an empty, strange room. This dream was beginning to scare me. I jumped out of the bed and ran through the hallway into the family room where I found Sylvia, Len’s niece, and two of her daughters watching television. No, this was not a dream; I was at the house in Glendale, in America, far away from my home in Fiji.

Once the realization that I was not dreaming came to light and what appeared to be a dream was in essence my reality, strange thoughts began to invade my mind. Was I ever going to see my family again? What if these people in whose care I have been placed didn’t like me? Would they throw me out into the strange world? As it was, I could hardly understand anything they were saying. What would I do all by myself, and where would I go? I wanted to run out of that room and keep on running until I could smell the fresh ocean air and see the familiar coconut trees swaying in the wind with clear blue waters hugging the white sandy beaches.