It wasn’t a bad life, nor was it a sad one. It was a time of learning, of discovery, a time to shed the superficiality she had worn like an armor. An armor that kept her safe and secure in a bubble of sterile existence. Bubble girl . But bubbles burst, even rainbow-hued ones, even the ozone layer had holes. And now each nuance was clear and felt. Felt deeply, it touched, it struck, it attacked the soft underbelly, the ventral side. Each image made an impression, it corroded an outer shell just a tiny bit more. Each layer got stripped away as each nerve ending was exposed.
She remembered a strip from a graphic novel where the Smartest Kid in the World was standing atop a tall bridge, with his mother who was pointing out various things to him. His mother told him he could see their town from where they were, even the house where they lived, even the tree outside the house, as the frames in the comic strip kept simulating a camera zoom lens while mother and child got smaller in size and the focus shifted to a panoramic view. The Smartest Kid struggled to see the various things his mom was trying to show him but try as he might, his eyes never strayed from the single strand of his mom’s red hair that the wind had whipped across his face, the focus was once again on the kid’s face. She felt this deeply. She was touched and moved to tears. It was inexplicable. She had never before “felt”.
The feeling was raw. She felt the love, she saw it in her daughter’s eyes, she wanted to hug her tight and never let go. She wanted to feel her tiny body, her unique warmth, she could stare at the rounded baby features forever, when her baby was sleeping, when her long, dark lashes were resting on the soft swell of the chubby cheeks, right underneath her eyes. She was taken by the clean breath. The breath that Garp described in his sweet six year old son. The breath that hadn’t soured yet. Pure innocence. It broke her heart to think of this ephemeral innocence, this transient splendor.
Her four year old daughter loved making up stories. She was astounded by a story her daughter told her. She paid attention to every word of the story that started:
“Once upon a time there was a little girl. Her name was Henria. Every morning Henria’s Mommy and Daddy got up and went to work. She stayed home with her friend, a cockroach. He was a nice cockroach. Henria said, ‘Hi cockroach, my name’s Henria. The cockroach said, ‘Hi Henria, I’m your friend. Would you mind if I took care of you and played with you while your Mommy and Daddy are at work?’ Henria said, ‘Sure!’ The cockroach was so happy he turned into a human being and they played all day.”
Was her child just making up a story to entertain herself and others or was this a girl who could deliver a highly nuanced tale of deep distress, at this tender age? She wondered, she was afraid. She was afraid a lot lately. An unnamed dread seeped into every corner of her brain just like the damp pain that seeped into every joint when it got cold, when it rained and whenever the sun hadn’t made an appearance in days. Those monsters, she thought, were real. They never left from underneath the bed or the closet. The ones that chased her down the dark steps to the basement as well as the ones that grabbed her ankles as she tried to leave. She had learnt to ignore them, she was in her bubble. But the bubble had burst now. She felt everything.
She flexed her tense feet and stretched them taut, she dug her nails into her palms, cratering them with crescent shapes, she chewed the insides of her cheeks and drew blood, her back was knotted up in tension, a pain that refused to leave as her shoulders crept up to her ears, as if to push back on the weight that she felt she was carrying, in an attempt to walk tall despite the burdens, perceived and real. Mostly perceived. They couldn’t be real, for it wasn’t a bad life, nor was it a sad one.
