“Here it is,” she said, pointing to her blanket fort. Velvet textures, pastel hues, candlelight throwing oversized shadows across the wall.
“What’s in there?”
“A current to possibility.” The phrase isn’t childlike at all. I hesitate, then get on my hands and knees to crawl inside.
Music-box notes hum in the air, soft and lilting, but a little off-key, like a lullaby that wants to soothe yet drifts toward sorrow. The fort seems to glow with the sound.
“What do you do in here?” I ask. But she isn’t with me anymore. I notice her notebook: the cover resembles padded walls from an old asylum, except not sterile, just a dreamy swirl of royal blue. I open it. The first page in black ink reads:
The Diary of X.
I feel more alive because of you.
Beside it rests my childhood bear, which doesn’t strike me as odd. Pappy’s glass eyes seem waterlogged, as if they’ve absorbed a thousand tears. I place him in my lap, waiting for the girl to return, as I flip another page.
Dear Diary,
If that is what I am supposed to call you.
This seeps in like water damage: quiet, relentless, loosening beams of self-trust. Maybe it’s more like empty calories, filling and depleting me in the same breath. Over the years, I’m more drained than fed.
I snap the notebook shut as if it burns. Right on cue, the girl reappears. “Do you like it?” she asks sweetly, and I’m confused.
“The fort? It’s cozy, isn’t it?” She settles into a sea of silk pillows. The interior is less pastels, it’s a jewel-toned world of rich emerald greens and ruby reds and amethyst purples that seems to expand as she moves.
“I like it,” I answer cautiously. But the truth is, I feel like the slow build of the sirens from Silent Hill could start blaring at any second.
“Do you like my writing?” Her eyes fall to my hands. A dusting of powder-blue eyeshadow blooms on the apples of her cheeks.
“I was…” I try to walk back the fact I’ve read some of it, but it’s pointless. “It seems sad.”
“It’s not.”
I flip to another page and she instructs me to read aloud: “Even when it hurts, I am not as dormant.”
She leans back, hands laced behind her head, as if she’s pleased with herself.
“That’s sad,” I insist.
“Why?”
“Because! Where do you even get these feelings? And words? At your age?” I laugh nervously.
“Look at the end,” she says.
I turn to the last page and read: “It gives me a different kind of pulse that beats alongside life’s grievances and normalcies and politeness.”
A nervous laugh escapes me again. “I don’t understand any of it,” I finally admit.
“You don’t have to.” She replies, “Your mark is there.”
(Daily Writing 091)
Thoughts?