IIN to have weird dreams, I dreamed I had a baby with disthing

I remember...

It was a hazy morning. Amber glow picking out the dewy leaves beside the hospital entrance. The air was cool, rolling up my skin as I ran to find you inside.

Which ward? Which room?

I felt like dice, thrown against the wall by some hoppers on the corners pushing heroin - colliding chaotically along the hospital corridors. I didn't want to miss it. Our child, our beautiful child.

A nurse pointed me in your direction. I thought I heard the sound of a baby; its first gulps of air, its first screams...

What are the first thoughts of a child as it is violently thrust into our universe? Does it have the internal language to even question the moment? From that warm shelter inside a mother, unaware that there is anything beyond the dark, the hum of incomprehensible voices beyond, the ocean-like sway - moving into terrific light, noise, a cascade of sensory stimulation! What a moment.

I rushed into the room. You held a little baby in your arms. A boy. He looked blue. He stretched and squeezed his little body like he was understanding the boundaries of his form. His eyes shut tight, like it was all too much. His voice crackling and crying out. What a moment, indeed.

But he was OK. He was healthy. A chick nesting in your arms.

You looked up at me - confused. A kind of uncertainty across your face.
"Are you his daddy?"
I guessed you were a little drowsy from the anaesthetic gas they'd provided.
"Yeah."
"Who are you?"
"I'm disthing. We met on the normal page."
"What? That is not normal."

This reminded me of a discussion I had with my grandmother when she was suffering from dementia. In some ways, every morning for her had been like that baby's first moment on Earth; chaos, confusion. But she had the language to express it, through wrinkled lips. She tried to assemble the scattered memories into some coherent picture, she looked desperately into our eyes, pleading for some understanding. "Who are you?"

Of course, your state was only temporary. But I remembered the reassurance that my grandmother found in talking to someone so certain of everything, omniscient. So I said to you,
"I know because I know all things."

In hindsight, that probably sounded ridiculous. But I could see you were satisfied by it.

"What will we name our son?"
"Norman."

A combination of 'normal' and 'man'. He will be the only normal thing ever existed between us, because neither of us is normal.

I walked to your side. Norman reached up with his tiny hand, searching the air for a solid corner of the universe to hang on to. I reached to hold his hand in my palm...

But he started to fade.

The room darkened. The shapes became blurred.

I could hear your voice, his squeals... But it was as though I was under water.

The glow from the sun receded leaving behind shadows, darkness.

I felt like Norman must have felt in his first moment, like my grandmother must have felt every morning as her memory crumbled away, like you felt in that drug-induced haze - lost.

Then I woke up.