I
woke up as a fairy in the empty restaurant next to the woods. I suppose I always knew when I wanted to live
in the dollhouse in the attic that my hopes and dreams beat inside of a tiny
heart. But not until I opened my eyes
and found myself crouching in the furthest corner of the kitchen pantry did I
know for certain.
I had been gone for a year—where, I
couldn’t say. But I did know I’d been
very ill, and that during this illness some industrious housekeeper within had
thrown huge dust covers over much of my memory.
I wasn’t sure I minded. Something
about the twilight endlessly falling over the woods told me that the last good
day had been long ago.
The restaurant, however, I
remembered. Quietly elegant, its white
tablecloths, spotless place settings, and crystal water glasses spoke of
another time. Windows ran the length of
the entire outside wall: restless trees
and half-lit sky filled the view as far as the eye could see. In the cramped kitchen, steel gray units and
panelled cabinets housed the pots, pans, and other cooking items. And then there was the pantry, nearly empty,
where I now found myself. I had never
seen anyone cooking in that kitchen.
Save one, I had never seen another soul in the restaurant at all.
In this endless sunset that enveloped
the restaurant, no customers ever came.
Instead, my friend Marietta, the hostess, usually sat at one of the
perfectly made tables by herself, doing paperwork of a kind we never discussed. Only the fading light that rippled through
those whispering trees dared enter the large T-shaped room. Why were there no customers? On my previous visits I’d only seen Marietta
in that hushed hour of solitude. Like so
many other questions I must have forgotten to ask her this one, too.
