Everything was unreal. She heard voices. Check that. One voice, her Dadd..Father's voice. It was singing:

"Julia oh Julia beautiful Julia Julia the impish baby...."

She spun in mid air, overwhelmed with joy. She was happier than she had felt in ages. All weight, both figurative and literal felt like it was gone. Never had been there. Around her was darkness. Then as if someone had turned on a switch she was surrounded by light. A soft light, a comforting light. She put her fingers in her mouth and sucked. The voice again:

"Julia oh Julia beautiful..."

The space around her changed. The light faded away and slowly as the approach of Christmas when you were six years old, was replaced by shapes. Shapes of blurred color, which transformed themselves into objects. Objects which Julia recognized, though she had not seen them in twenty years. A blue couch. A gold plated birdcage, complete with a stuffed cockatiel inside. A flea market chest of drawers, with one handle missing. A picture of her Grandmother on her wedding day in 1971.

"...Julia the impish baby..."

A particularly ugly framed poster of a Picasso painting. What she now knew, with her adult mind, to be from his Blue period. A striped overstuffed chair complete with her older sister, Denise, sitting in it as always, reading one of the "Harry Potter" books.

All this she saw, as if she was there again.

Her Fath..Daddy's voice off key and to husky to be beautiful, but singing as he often did to her when she was two years old, to soothe her and let her know she was loved. It was there too. She could hear it.

"..Impish baby...

Julia...."

Then she saw herself. In a mirror. The imp leaped out at her and she knew it was all so real. That was her! She was two again. A baby in red tee-shirt and damp diapers. Her smile could have powered a major city.

Then she noticed that the image in front of her in the mirror had folded in on itself at one corner. As if someone was pulling a page out of a book. She turned and looked around herself one last time. So she wouldn't forget. A tear in her eye.

Her Daddy's voice became louder and she was curled up in his lap:

"Julia oh Julia beautiful Julia...."

Then horrified, the tears coming quicker, she saw that the page was nearly all the way pulled out of her book. No amount of singing could console her and her Daddy's voice stopped. Then it was dark again, all around her. She blinked.

Then awoke. To face January 12th, 2040. Her fortieth birthday.

Author's Note: The song seen above is sung to the tune of " Lydia the Tattooed Lady" I do not know who wrote it, otherwise I would give them credit here.


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