Once, in Beijing, a young girl in a red gown huddled in a doorway.
The warm dirty mist saturates every poor. Across the street relentless construction of new industry raged on erasing the remnants of an older time.
The girl tries to imagine the world as it was, as she has learned in her history books. But now only progress and drives her world. She can not hear or picture the silence or the wildernesses she imagines and longs for. She grows weary of the diminishing magic of the unknown.
I remember my Nans pension book. The smell of the paper and the ink. I would hold it to my nose as I walked to the post office. Nan would pre-sign it and Mary, the post mistress, would happily cash it.
Then, at the main counter, I'd purchase Nans usual forty Number Six Tipped and fizzy cola bottles for me. It didn't matter that I was only eleven. In our little village everyone knew everyone.
Eventually the pension books were replaced with the new banking system, something my Nan never quite got the hang of. My trips to the little...
It was the leaded glass crystal, fluted sides, a stem as delicate as a lily. She filled it halfway, she didn't want to be greedy.
"Is that all you're having?" Her mother had just poured her glass up to the rim and was now walking awkwardly across the room, trying not to spill it.
"I like the way it looks in the glass."
Her mother sat down on the couch and slurped. "That's why I like these glasses. They look good no matter what you put in them."
She paused behind the couch, behind her mother, and took a sip....
Christmas morning. It was always something excting and special when I was growing up. There would be a grand Christmas tree set up in the corner, sparkling with the many cheerful lights, music playing softly in the background, and the smell of fresh holiday baking floating in the air. As kids, we would always sleep underneath the dinning room table on that night before Christmas. Well, sleep may not be the right term, we were usually much too excited to close our eyes. In the morning at 7:30 sharp, we would rouse my parents out of bed and gather around...
It was the fall that surprised me the most. I mean, I knew from the first time I looked into his bright blue eyes that I loved him but after a few more meetings, I realized that I was falling in love. I guess I had always thought that it would just be "love at first sight" and that would be that. But it wasn't. I did love him from first sight - make no mistake of that - but with every meeting I had with him, every word we spoke, I fell more in love with him. I was...
"I asked you to stop!", my youngest shouts to Juliana, my oldest. While they have been fighting, I have been attempting to clean out small hole. It might be the smallest, but it was the only one unoccupied. Being the oldest mama mouse makes feeding hard, especially when you are the farthest from the kitchen, and closest to the broom. Being the slowest, I am the only one that The Human knows about. It's extremely difficult to protect your babies when you cant' even protect yourself, especially when they are so young they can
The baker is making a pie.
Why, oh why,
Was I not invited?
You had a big party.
I wasn't invited.
I never am.
It's a dance, this time.
And I'm still not invited.
Why?
I guess it's better to say,
I'm uninvited.
More than enough.
Upon my soft upholstered chair
I sat and spoke into the air
For they were listening, you see
The ones who come and sit with me
I cannot see them, though I try
Their form is but a wistful sigh
More solemn than a flow'ring tree
The ones who come and sit with me
I have no proof that they exist
But still my thoughts of them persist
A secret kept? A fantasy?
The ones who come and sit with me
My audience in silence waits
As softly I pass though their gates
I was trying to count them. The little bastards kept moving around, making me lose track, infuriating me to no end. I had been awake for almost thirty hours and sleep was no closer than it had been twenty-nine hours ago. Even my imagination wouldn't collaborate in sending me into unconsciousness. Goddamn sheep.
Sheep and sleep were two very similar words, I decided. I instantly sought to catalog all the words that rhymed with sleep. Bleep, steep, reap, peep, seep, weep, beep, keep, jeep. Meryl Streep.
The original verb still eluded me. It would be a long night (and day).
Birds. I hate badminton. Eye-hand coordination was never my strength.
"You'll have fun," Fanny told me.
I hate how the little birdies fall apart if you step on them. Which I always do. They're easier to miss, fallen in the long grass like puffs of dandelions.
"Tell her to play," Fanny told her brother. We avoided eye contact. Like we always did when she was around. Our secret.
"You'll have fun," he said, not looking at me. "I'll let you win."
I didn't want to beat anybody, least of all him. I wanted to fold him in my arms, cradle...