How are you supposed to meditate? I'm closing my eyes, breathing deep, and sitting cross-legged. I know you're supposed to clear your mind, so I try not to think, but that seems to be the hardest part. The closest I can come is letting the soft sounds of the world around me distract me from any thoughts that might spring up in my head. There's the sound of birds singing; the passage of the wind through the trees and the landscape; and the rumble of some distant road, which I imagine as the babble of a brook. Bloo isn't here, so that should make things easier.
The sun warms my back and the space around me starts to melt away ever so slightly. My breathing deepens and I almost feel like I'm drifting into sleep, though not quite. My mind generates a sunny beach; places a few wooden boardwalks on it; drops some sailboats into the cool, gentle ocean…
This seems like one of those perfect days. We're all set to go crab fishing, and Bloo is even coming along. My parents take us past a very long row of buildings towards the boat we're renting.
"How do we catch crabs?" I ask my dad. "Is it the same as catching regular fish?"
He laughs. "No, it's different because they crawl around on the ocean floor. We have to lower cages down there with bait, and then pull them up when the crabs walk in."
"What do crabs taste like?"
"They're delicious. You have to try some."
As we were passing by a warehouse, my mom said "Hey, why don't we take a picture of all the boats that are out there?" She got out the camera and stepped around a truck that was in the way. Bloo winks at me. What's that supposed to mean?
"Thing thing has too many buttons. Which one actually takes the picture?"
My dad walks over to her. "Here, it's this one on the top, see?"
Bloo follows them. What was he doing? I walk around the side of the truck to get a better view. He reaches up to one of the latches holding the back of the truck shut, looks at me, giggling, and holds a hand to his mouth.
"Shhh."
I suddenly know what's about to happen. Before I can cry out, he opens the latch. The truck is on a slant, so its payload of steel cable comes cascading out, slithering like a mass of angry snakes. My parents and I all scream as the cables knock them into the water and fall on top of them, immediately spreading out, tangling, and sinking. I cry and scream for help while Bloo falls over laughing. People come over, shouting, as I lean over the edge of the docks, but I can't even see my parents anymore. There are bubbles rising up, and some of the cables still haven't sunk, but there's no sign of my parents. I realize that they're struggling down there, tangled up and trapped, dying. A pair of hands grabs me, pulling me away from the edge as the scene becomes crowded. I'm carried away shaking and sobbing, shutting my eyes as tight as I can and wanting this all to be a nightmare, wishing as hard as I can that I'll just wake up…
I wake up, heart pounding, the vision still as fresh in my mind as if it had happened yesterday. I finally know the truth.