Tag: childhood

Sign Here

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Nobody notices as she slips in through the back door, silent as a whisper.
Everybody’s busy getting ready for the last scene, shoving props around. Costume changes.
She recognizes a few of the actors and gets out her little autograph book.
“Excuse me,” says a voice. She nearly jumps out of her skin as a man with a clipboard taps her on the shoulder. “Are you with the press?”
She’s frozen. She doesn’t know what to say. She-
“Yes,” says an actor. “She’s here to interview me.”
The clipboard-holder vanishes.
The actor opens the book, signs his name, and smiles.

The Belt

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Mother likes it when we come to dinner, especially when I bring the kids.
When dinner is over and Dad loosens his belt, I see something in Mom’s eyes.
She’s afraid.
Sometimes, she’d call me at the strangest times. Early. Late.
But when I ask her if anything is wrong, she doesn’t say a word.
What does Dad do with that belt that scares her?
I found out last week. Mom was in the kitchen, beaten to death. Dad was hanging in the basement from the belt he beat her with.
Thanksgiving will be at home this year, I guess.

Exchange

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I’m a part of a teachers exchange program.
These poor kids, living under brutal military occupation, right?
Boy, was I wrong.
One day, a gunman ran into the classroom and yelled something.
The kids happily ran to the door and windows, making a human wall.
Soldiers just saw the kids and passed by.
Later, the gunman was telling stories of making bombs and blowing up schools.
The kids were cheering, saying when they grew up, they wanted to be a like him.
What horrifies me the most is: what is the teacher back at my old school teaching my class?

Does it snow?

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It never snows in the colony. It never rains, either.
We keep the environment stable. The crops like it that way, and we don’t have to keep clothes around for seasons we don’t have.
Still, every year, kids keep asking about snow and rain they see on the video we brought from Earth.
We’ve tried to shave and blow ice to recreate snow in the refrigeration chambers, but it’s just not the same.
When the kids whine, we show them the live video feed from Earth.
Well, live, as in current. No life there now.
Which is why we’re here.

My First Midnight

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The first time I saw midnight, it was New Year’s Eve.
Well, sort of. It was really nine or nine thirty. Later than my bedtime, but still, not the real midnight time for New Year’s for Chicago.
My mom had moved the clock forward so it looked like eleven. My dad had popped popcorn for us all.
By the time it was fake midnight, we were out of popcorn except for two pieces.
Tossing those two pieces into the air, one after the other, yeah, it was silly. But if that’s all you’ve got, it’s the thought that counts, right?

Up A Tree

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I was walking home one evening when I saw a kid sitting by a tree and crying.
I stopped and knelt by the kid.
“Why are you crying?” I asked him.
“My cat is caught up the tree,” he whined.
I started to climb the tree, but he yelled for me to come back down.
So I did.
“What is it, kid?” I asked.
He handed me a pair of very sharp tin snips.
“What are these for?” I said.
“To cut the cat loose from the bailing wire I used to tie him to the tree branch,” he said.

Prayers Answered

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The simplest mistakes can have such disastrous consequences.
It’s true that God hears all prayers, but he’s gotten rather sloppy keeping them organized.
Every now and then, someone’s prayer gets answered for a complete stranger.
Maybe you prayed for a cure for your father’s cancer, but you wake up to a brand new bicycle?
That kind of thing.
It’s been happening more and more, which suggests that either God isn’t infallible or that people don’t know what they really want.
I, for one, really like this shiny new bicycle.
Actually, it’s kinda fun to ride to the cemetery with it.

Miss

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So many things to miss:
I want to see the sunshine.
I want to feel the rain on my face.
I want to feel the grass between my toes.
I want to feel the wind between my teeth… breathe in…. breathe out.
I want to climb a tree and hang from a limb, just swinging, rocking back and forth, at any moment my legs could slip, but I know I won’t fall.
I thought I wouldn’t fall.
But I did. And I broke my neck.
It’s been years, but every day, someone tells me I’ll move again.
I want to.

Files

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I can’t tell you how many times I was told something would go in my permanent file.
I always wondered where they kept those files. And if they bothered to convert all the old records to computer files when hard drives and computers got cheap.
What do they do with those things when people die? Do they burn the paper records and delete the computer files, or do they burn them to a CD or write them to a tape, stacking all the dead records in a box and putting them in a storage room?
Can this be considered immortality?

Tickler

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Little Jimmy liked to tickle people. He loved to hear laughter.
He got so good at it, he could find the ticklish spots on all people who claimed not to be ticklish at all.
Folks got to know him well. So much so, all he had to do was wiggle his fingers and you’d feel them on your body, tickling you. Five, six, ten feet away – you could feel it.
Maybe he could too?
Jimmy’s last tickle victim was a toaster. He used a metal fork to do the deed.
I wonder… right before he was electrocuted, did it tickle?