(no subject)
a simple childhood memory entitled
It’s just the three of us. I’m in the middle. My feet take two steps for every one they take. Mommy holds my hand in hers and Daddy leads the way. I know it’s really far away, even though Mommy says we’re almost there. Mommy’s face is all red and glittery with water, and she keeps switching which of her hands holds mine. We walk past building after building after building, tall as the sky. I look down at the sidewalk because I am tired of looking up. Everything is so high. All I see is the grey floor, broken up by cracks as I keep on walking and walking and walking. I never step on a crack.
I can hear my tummy growling. It’s angry at me for not feeding it. I see it! I see it! I see it before Mommy does! I run ahead of her, next to Daddy. He holds the door for me and lets me go in first. I stop before the darkness. I’m scared it’s going to eat me up and swallow me whole. The big man in fancy clothes tells us to follow him. So we do. He lets us sit at the small table in the middle of the big room. I want to look at everything, but there’s so much to see. I only let my eyes look at something for three seconds so that I can look at it all before we leave because I know we will never come back.
I see lots of tables filled with old people and lots of ugly pictures on the walls. I wish that the pictures were painted with pretty colors because everything is so boring. Everything on the table was white, except for the shiny forks and knives. They gave us too many forks and knives. Daddy’s teaching me how to count with Cheerios-we play with them every day at breakfast. I can count to almost twelve so I know that there are one, two, three, four, five, six forks and only me and Mommy and Daddy-that’s only three.
The big man gives me a funny chair with really tall legs, tall as the giraffe’s neck-the one we saw at the zoo with Nana and Pop-pop. When Daddy lifts me up into it and straps the seat belt around my tummy, I feel big, too. It’s nice. A girl with a white apron walks over to us and smiles at me, asking if I would like some cold milk. I tell her yes, please. Mommy and Daddy smile at me, so I smile back. Daddy strokes her leg under the table so I can’t see, but I know.
I don’t know why they are so happy. Mommy used to be pretty, but now she’s really fat. Her fingers always look like they are holding up her belly so it won’t fall down. And Daddy just keeps talking about some little boy. I don’t know why he does, but I don’t see any little boys or little girls in the room-just me.
The milk tastes good, though. I feel it swimming inside me, all cool and stuff.