sanctuary
Her mother lets me retreat to her daughter’s room to feel better, allows me to play with her toys. I silently look through the girl’s things.
I sit on my knees in front of her fat, overflowing toy chest and wish it were time to go home.
Filed under: Family, Forum | Tags: childhood, Family, Forum, memory, microfiction, spectacle, toys
He hands me toys; new wonders, treasures of blue and red shapes filled with glittery tinted gel. I hold them, one in each hand, to study and consider more seriously. I don’t know what to do with them, so I stare at them to tell me.
When he finishes his hushed talk, he picks me up and takes me back out to the living room where everyone is waiting. He sets me in front of him. I stand, still staring at the toys, twisting my arm around to look at them from every side without dropping one. Everyone is gathered in the room around me, watching. Mommy is filming me.
My scalp hurts because my pig tails are tied too high and tight on my head. My dress is tight, too, and getting short for me. I feel pinched and pulled and arranged and it makes me itchy and empty-headed. I ignore everyone and look down at the toys in my hands, my purple floral dressy shoes with frilly bobby-socks, and then down to the floor’s expanse of speckled orangey-brown.
I stare at them to tell me.
