In retrospect
My contribution is in bold.
I went through a door and it took me to a place like diagon alley in harry potter. I went to the market and bought a kilo of Mackerel. Tonight, mother will throw a party and we will bake the fish by the fireplace, garnished with herbs, butter and garlic. On my way back, I caught the eye of the cobbler and he hissed at me. Taken aback, I tripped on an uneven patch of concrete and skipped all the way home to disguise my embarassment.
Perhaps the ploy had succeeded, but I didn't want to turn back to check... that would give it away, wouldn't it? Come to think of it, I haven't seen mother for a long time now. I thought that I would miss her, but I didn't. Three years, three thousand miles away didn't change a thing between us. Maybe it is because I was never far from her spiritually. So, that night 30 of us gathered together and relished the kilo of fish.
We were too poor to afford wine, we had fermented milk- that tasted vaguely like indian lassi. My brothers and I played out the last supper scene. We carefully sliced our portions of fish into wafer sized bits and offered each other fermented milk in a metal cup, enjoying the clinking sounds it made. The adults gathered by the fire and talked about the recent strange happenings in the town and we, the children played frisbee with freshly baked chocolate donuts. Shortly after, we were jolted from our games by a violent knock on the door.
We froze. In the sudden silence we became suddenly aware of the environment. Nothing broke that silence, and I sought an aural solace by listening to the crickets. We didn't dare to move.
From the corner of I saw Uncle Hob slowly reach for a wooden plank. My heart raced... My back was to the door but I didn't know if I should turn around.
It was a false alarm. My mom ran outside to pick up a cradle basket of coloured easter eggs, each one painted meticulously, documenting the designs of the centuries gone by from the 1200s. There were a few that looked like the treasured eggs of the Romanov empire.
Carefully, all the children gathered round and helped themselves to the colourful shells. We each invented a dinosaur that would hatch out of these shells and used our coloured chalk to sketch the images of the baby dinosaur we would see.
Meanwhile, the adults started to whisper amongst themselves, trying to find an explanation to the strange source of gift. By 2 in the morning, the adults were drunk and merry. Most of the kids were exhausted and made their beds on the bellies of Uncle Hob and Aunt Martha.
A few took a sip of the forbidden liqour and just sat down, drugged, disorientated and happy.
Only Fleetfoot and I were sober and awake.
"The eggs..."
Fleetfoot's sudden words startled me. He was normally quiet, and I don't remember him speaking after that sharp knock.
He was about to complete his sentence, but stopped... it was then that I realized that I had been staring.
At Strawberry shortcake, albeit in a yellow dress. I was terribly disappointed and asked. 'why aren't you in your usual pink outfit?'
'Because I'm sick of looking pastey pink. And I saw in vogue magazine that yellow, c'est a la mode pour printemps.' replied the one foot tall dolly.
Fleetfoot huddled in a corner as I inched closer to Strawberry shortcake to chat. I made her tea and stole some scones from the kitchen, for a mini tea party with my childhood playmate. Before I knew it, it was morning and mom hustled me up to hang up the laundry.
I have often wondered why we were the only family in Pale Dove Street to wash clothes on a daily basis. The sheer amount of smog that the factories produce a few blocks down took less time to dirty the clothes than for us to clean them.
Perhaps it was the pride that mother had. That same pride that gave her the strength to bring us up despite daddy's disappearance.
She had once lived in a castle, and for what she called 'love', she had decided to move here. It was here that she said she had spent her best years, but it is also here, I think, that she spent her worst.
"Cleanliness is next to godliness", by the standards of our clothes, we were far from godly. I couldn't understand mom's obsession with daily laundry. Maybe, like they say, doing the laundry is theraputic or perhaps it's a psychological manifestation that we're always airing our clean laundry in public, forbidden to speak of our philandering father.
I would rather live in a little cottage bathed in industrial smog than a castle. I always associate castles with ghosts or I think of the set of Umberto Eco's 'Name of the rose' and all the debaunchery that took place within the majestic compounds. Maybe mother escaped the filthy clutches of the boogey 'clergymen' and she was no less of Sade's virtuous Justine.
I shudder to think about the circumstances mom had to deal with. I was a poor but happy child. Then again, how many children really think about being happy? They just are. Happy is an adult word, and I suppose they throw the verb around too much, you don't need to talk to a child about happiness. You see it.
I haven't forgotten how to smile. I had just forgotten how to genuinely feel it over the past years. Ever since dad left, he brought with him a piece of us that was never found again.
Throughout the day, I wondered if the mysterious gift was from my father... I swore I had sensed his presence... a feeling of danger and yet comfort.
Come to think of it, Fleetfoot had eyes just like Dad's. Wild and yet self-controlled, like a beast with a vine leash. My heart would skip a beat when he wore dad's cowboy hat - the only item he left with us. He did so only twice, after realizing that my stone-faced mother would break down and cry simply at the sight of him and the hat.
I want to run away with him to somewhere far from this place, but all I did was to run away from myself three years ago. I claimed that I wanted to see the world, but before reach the railway I knew that Pale Dove was where I belonged. For three years I had missed him.
