She can't sleep.
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It was April, blossoms were beginning to poke out their heads. It was the day before Easter and she colored her eggs with colored pencil. She drew the chick trapped inside the egg. She sculpted a beak out of colored paper and glued it to a cracked egg. She received worried looks and blithely dumped the rest of her eggs in the vinegar, five-color dye.
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It was today. She had been told to do one thing too many and it was raining outside and it was too hot and she just wanted to be in the rain and out. She peeled off her socks that weren’t socially acceptable for her to wear but she wore them anyway. She ran outside on the pretense of checking the mailbox (although she had already checked it), then on checking the garden. The wet grass, newly green from the harsh winter, hugged and caressed her feet, making their soles (or souls) feel refreshed. The grass was greener than any color of green she had ever seen. She ran around to the backyard where the magnolia tree was in full bloom, and everything else (save for the diseased crabapple who was season-confused) was bare as lightning. It wasn’t quite raining. She wished it would rain harder.
She smelled every magnolia blossom she could get her nose to. Their smell was like magnolia blossoms in the rain with an after-smell of wet dirt. How unfortunate for one who does not know what this smells like. She brushed up between the magnolia tree and the rusty chain-link fence, finding the spot where she had climbed up the tree all those years ago to escape again, and to leave her mark on a being of the world. This magnolia tree was gargantuan. It had never been trimmed in her memory, and it threatened the powerline that it clutched between branches. She set her foot on the soft earth beneath the tree, and something snapped within her as the branch beneath her foot cracked in two.
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Spent the good part of an hour outside in the rain. Climbed the magnolia tree. It was in full bloom. It was raining like crazy. Stayed on the one branch for the best part of the hour. Smelled the tree. Got dirty. Found faces in the tree. Scraped away the dirt and lichen from around the eyes of the faces. Contemplated heaven and death. What color is the bark in heaven, away from the dirt of earth? Determined it would be white and green. The eyes in the faces were old and young, and they cried with the rain. Got drenched. Couldn’t tell if own self cried or not. Got really dirty. Contemplated water droplets, and a speck of dirt and lichen tumbling together in one. Parents called. Didn’t come. Rain died down. Expected the new wave of rain from faster dripping of the gutter. Found where initials were carved from many years ago, right over a smiley face. Saw the tree had carved its own initials. Got dirtier. Realized that the branch holding weight was right over the power line. Clutched the central trunk. Feared for life. Thanked that it wasn’t a thunderstorm. Didn’t fear for life enough to move. Pondered the fact that there were so few magnolia trees. Figured tree was lucky. Pondered that the tree was broken in many places, but its bends were its branches. Didn’t get cold. Got cold. Laughed. Pondered insanity. Held the belief that might be insane. Both rejected and proved this belief with infallible evidence from both sides. Wondered if parents called the cops. Tasted the rain on the lichen on the bark of the tree. Spat out the dirt. Apologized to the tree for being rude. Climbed higher. Smelled flowers. Crushed a bud. Looked at rain drops on flowers. Got dirty. Pondered cleanliness. Jumped at noises. Stayed still for a long time. Didn’t hurt self. Wondered if the sky would get dark soon. Decided it was time to go back. Hands were red and dirty. Was wet. Left part of self nestled in the branches.
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She went into the garage. She was ill at ease with the absolute silence. She went into the house, the dishwasher was on so it was okay. She went up to room and wrote all of this. She had nothing clean to wear, and needed to get off her wet clothes, so she put on a dress that looked like the magnolia blossoms if you imagined it just right.
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And she has finished her story and now she can sleep.
)
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