33 Snowfish

When I opened my eyes Boobie wasn't in the driver's seat no more. He wasn't next to me and he wasn't in the back seat neither, and when I looked up and through the windshield I could see him walking backwards through the dead trees. I looked in the back seat again cuz I couldn't hear the baby but the TV box was still there and the baby was in it and his arms was swimming out and you could see the windshield wipers slashing through his little blue eyes and I gave him my frostbite hand and he took it and put it in his mouth and I tried singing that "Hushabye Mountain" song to him but I couldn't get the words right cuz my teeth was chattering. Then I looked out through the windshield again and Boobie kept walking backwards, smaller and smaller, and the snow was thick and white and sideways but you could still see how his hair was lifting off his shoulders. He raised his hand up like he was trying to say goodbye and even though he was far away now I put my good hand up and tried to touch him through the glass. And I called out to him, too. I used the voice in my throat and the voice in my heart and the voice in my guts and the psychic voice in my mind, but Boobie couldn't hear me. And I called out again and again till his hand fell and he started to fade, floating back and back, disappearing through the snowing trees. _______ 33 SNOWFISH by Adam Rapp. Copyright (c) 2006 by Adam Rapp. Published by Candlewick Press, Inc., Cambridge, MA.Rapp, Adam is the author of '33 Snowfish ', published 2006 under ISBN 9780763629175 and ISBN 0763629170.