Now I Lay Me by Robert McFadden

The Cycle of our lives. “Now I lay me down to sleep” he prayed at five. His plump little fingers grasping
his grandmother’s fragile, bone-thin, vein-colored fingers. He felt the familiar comforting warmth
coursing through his pajama clad body as he began softly by rote to name all who mattered in his young
innocent world. He was loved, he was safe, he was provided for. How secure he felt in his grandmother’s
arms. This image of a loving world was to stay faithfully with him, just like his big brown hairy eyeless
teddy bear that was now tucked safely under one side of the big blue fluffy invitingly warm bed, for just
another short three years. He couldn’t have dreamt that within three short years everything he held
precious in his own little secure world would be torn from him. Just like his birth, torn from the snug
warmth of his Mother’s womb, ripped and pushed and shoved and pulled into the stark light that was
the world. At least then there were arm enveloping arms, a warm breast to cling to and a tightly
wrapped warm blanket securing him from that big, cold, outside world. It all seemed so very long ago
and so very far away now. All that had happened, all that hadn’t, all that he had become, all that he
hadn’t. Here he lay now on a cold damp Toronto street, his blanket now last weeks paper, the fleshy,
bony arms bore more holes than last weeks paper. His own thin, cold, veinless fingers shaking the paper
cup as he repeated by rote all that mattered in his now nearly lifeless existence; ”change for a coffee,
change for a burger”? He lay down one last time, his eyeless teddy bear now staring blankly at him,
repeating something from somewhere within his own soulless mind, ”Now I lay me down to sleep”

I grew up in rural Nova Scotia and lived there until 6 years ago when at 63 I relocated to Toronto Ontario, the complete opposite migration that most Canadians follow. Writing has been my ”go-to” therapy for dealing with all the curves life has seen fit to throw me. To date, my writing has been solely for my benefit. – Robert McFadden bobmcfadden54@gmail.com