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 long forgotten 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.
All I could remember was that I’d been very ill, and that during this illness some
industrious housekeeper within must have 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 recognized.
Quietly elegant, with its white tablecloths, spotless place settings, and
crystal water glasses, it spoke of another time.
Windows ran the length of the entire outside wall: restless trees and half-lit sky filled the
view. 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
the 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? Like so many other questions
I must have forgotten to ask Marietta this one, too.
