A Window to the World

September 21, 2003, California

It should be about her life here as much about her experiences there.

A misunderstanding

When I lost my travel book centuries ago

burned the ancient forest where

you were my favorite tree

You are the reality I cannot close in on

what flew through my hair that I

             mistook for permanency          

Tomorrow is Crying for You (Pt. 5)

I woke still tucked between the sweaters, and still, to my disappointment, very tiny.  A quick check confirmed the presence of fairy wings.   I risked a small peek outside of the drawer, but nothing in the room had changed.  The lamp glowed softly, the faded flower-printed covers of the double bed remained untouched.

As I emerged from the drawer I realized I had no idea how long I’d slept.   The endless twilight had not given way to dawn—it never did.  That hadn’t seemed to matter the other times I’d visited, but now it left me cold.  I wanted to know how long I’d been in this room—or at least to believe that the clock was ticking down on this fairy fantasy, and that soon I would wake up somewhere else.

Try as I might, though, I could find no clock.  In low spirits I left the room, the quiet now beginning to stifle me.  Yet it seemed unwise to make my own noise, so I flew in almost total silence back to the restaurant, hoping to discover Marietta this time.

Diary entry, March 2014

But I can’t.  I can’t because I'm afraid.  The stories come to me in dreams and haunt me.  They refuse translation.  I am afraid.  I don’t want anyone to know me.  I don’t want anyone to know anything.  I don’t want to know myself.

Saint Margaret

Oh, yes, the dragon replies,

I shielded you

But then the closet nearly

burned down with you

in it

If you are ready to speak

the riddle

we are waiting

we are in no hurry

but I am not mistaken

you know the words

you deny them

I no longer deny you

Haunted

"If you could never go back to your world, what would you miss most?"

Josie thought of Jack and her mother; of her aunt; of how it felt to stand barefoot on the cool driveway pavement early on a summer morning.  "Pumpkin bread," she answered.

"Pumpkin bread," the King repeated.  "What is pumpkin bread?"

"Something worth missing."

The King wondered why Josie's smile seemed so sad.  But this time he did not ask.

Tomorrow is Crying for You (Pt. 4)

Still, my woolly thoughts seemed to be leading me somewhere, so I pushed out of my mind the math exams I’d missed, the classrooms I couldn’t find.  I didn’t want to think about the times I woke up in a library, with only a few days left to write a year-end term paper I hadn’t even started.  I never knew how these crises turned out, because suddenly they would be over, and I would be here, on my way to the restaurant to visit Marietta.  She never asked where I’d been.  She was my friend.

Finally the hallway widened into a large, silent atrium, with massive stairs leading to the second floor.  I buzzed up the staircase, following its curvature instead of simply flying straight up.  In the much smaller hallway off to the right some instinct, or past experience, brought me to a small bedroom, gently lit by a reading lamp.  I didn’t know whose it was or why no one slept there tonight, but I did know I would be safe here—at least for a little while.

Photo by C. Hornby

The bed, however, was not an option.  I fluttered over to the tall chest of drawers.  Each drawer had been left open, just the tiniest bit:  I settled for the middle drawer, the one with the thick woolly winter sweaters.  When I was big I’d hated wool and its scratchy, suffocating warmth, but now I curled myself into a tight ball between a snowflake-patterned jumper and a purple cabled cardigan and let out a little sigh.  Tomorrow, perhaps, I would be big again.  Tomorrow I might remember why I kept forgetting.