etherea
A crazed, Aryan child is behind me. Tiny, tight hands that can do anything, trying to wrap a string of silver pearl balls around my neck, to make up for the scarf she stole. She has a runtish six-year-old elegance throwing it over her shoulder just so, all crocheted, black & witchy-poo. Spiders and wool webs. I left this string of pearls here 2 years ago, long forgotten. She found it again like sunken treasure as though she'd been waiting forever for me to come back, for me to reclaim it.
She's crazytown. She's mad. She's not human - she is deaf and autistic, and she likes to jump on people like a baby white monkey, hugging them & playing with their hair. "I'm gentle, I'm gentle", she signs. She's NOT. She's hyperactive, insane. She throws her entire body into telling her stories since she can't use her mouth {for anything but screaming & strange underwater songs}, & I swear she's an alien. Like any otherworldly creature, she doesn't cry over the thousand bruises on her skin from determined tricycling & kitchen frenzies, but she cries long, glass, heartbroken tears when dad accidentally breaks the orange balloon she has been puffing air into all evening. She scampers to her mother for comfort from this terrible man who ruined her only gift, & when she calms slightly she goes back to the accident site, daddy's lap, where she picks up the limp, broken pieces of balloon & tries to blow air back into them anyway. She brings them to me. "K-L,
"K-L," she signs. "You try". I tell her it's broken.
I break an imaginary heart-shaped cookie in two in my hands, and she cries again, remembering the afternoon and how hard she tried to learn how to make a balloon "Big", "More", in her mute voice. Everytime the balloon puffed its air out, her excitement vanished and she rumpled onto the floor like a deflated balloon.
Before getting back up again, forgetful.
Aliens always do.