The edge of a conch.
I shake my head and go back to staring without looking.
But then the subway stops at one station, and right there in front of me is the baby I drew yesterday painted on the wall behind a bench. It’s not the whole picture but a section, as if it’s zoomed in on the baby with the edges of the conch showing.
My heart hammers rather painfully, and I try to remember if I saw this yesterday and then subconsciously copied it in my sketchbook. But I’d have remembered something like this.
People mill in and out of the subway, most not sparing the baby a single glance while there are others staring and pointing at it.
The subway moves again, and I stare at it until it disappears.
Bits and pieces of the drawing appear. The rays of the sun. Just the seaweed painted overhead, stretching from one side of the subway car to the other like wriggling snakes.
I get off at my station, my heart still hurting from something I can’t name because what I’m imagining is the impossible. But I’m not ready for what’s waiting for me when I climb up the stairs.
Right there in front of my exit, painted across several buildings like they’re paper, is my drawing.
The sleeping baby in the conch held by her mother’s cupped hands and the tiny jellyfish swimming beside her.
And I know it’s mine because of the tear smudge at the edge of the conch, blurring it.
Jasmine White
This is impossible.
This is utterly andcompletelyimpossible.
Am I hallucinating?
I rub my eyes, but everyone around me is seeing it as well.
“Who did that?” someone asks beside me.
“How did they do it so fast? It wasn’t here yesterday, right?”
“No. I took this same route.”
“It’s pretty.”
“Sure, but it’s vandalism, right?”
I press a hand to my mouth, my stomach twisting and twisting like it’s threatening to expel everything in it.
Did I do this?Howdid I do this? Did I sleepwalk, get on the subway at three in the morning, and somehow paint entire buildings that are twenty stories high? Did I fly?
There are blessings in this vanity, Mama said.
All your wild imaginations, draw them here,my great-aunt said.
No way.
Did the blessing forgive me? Did it become a story stretching beyond the person who has it?
I turn away and hurry in the direction of the school, trying to shove my shock down. I don’t have time to think about this right now. I didn’t study yesterday, didn’t do any homework, and I know I’m behind.
When I reach the school, I hear bits and pieces of conversations as I pass other students on my way to class. My painting is the main subject.
I’m a second from colliding into someone and jump back just in time.
