Bedtime Stories

My mother likes to read me bedtime stories before I go to sleep. I used to like them, but now they keep me up at night. 

No matter how much I beg her to change the stories back to the ones she used to tell, she won’t do it. She keeps telling me about an old lady that lives in a tree. I don’t know why it scares me, but it does. She says that this old lady’s name is Baba, and at night, she comes out of her tree and plays with all the children that live nearby. She cooks for them and dances with them and tells them stories, and when the fall asleep, she takes them back to her tree to live with her forever.

In the dark, after my mother finishes the story, she sings me a lullaby to try to get me to go to sleep.

I don’t fall asleep after the story, and I can’t sleep after the lullaby. I just lie in bed on my side, wide awake until my mother finally leaves my room.

I really wish she’d leave me alone, but when I tried to talk to my dad about it, he just looked at me with a raised eyebrow and pain in his eyes. He lifted me up and sat me on his lap and said "I know you're having a hard time right now, but don't worry, son. I'm sure they'll find your mother soon."

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