On a few occasions, I have gone to see a woman who reads energy and receives images just by sitting with a person.  A kind of psychic I suppose,   though I am uncomfortable admitting this.  Once, Liliane painted an image of little three-year old me at a sunny window playing with colourful gems conducting light.  I was entranced with a magical world of my own.  Somehow, my reverie was destroyed by a large and thunderously loud male authority who wrenched me from my delicate and intricate space, and demanded something from me that then disappeared my imagination.  According to Liliane this was a momentous and almost final event.  It wounded me deeply.  For twenty years, I have sought to reawaken and engage this precious and unique creativity that was lost over thirty-eight years ago.  The following is fiction about colour, light, a little girl, a father, desire, obligation, imagination and power.

The couch at the window is fun to stand on.  It’s a bouncy ground.  I really like to bounce.  I am wearing my wooly poncho that Auntie Moonie knitted all by herself.  And brown curduroy pants with a tight elastic on my belly that leaves bumpy red marks, and my walking booties and a white turtleneck.  It kinda squeezes my neck sometimes.  After I pull it on, my head pops out and my hairs float up to the sky and my Mommy laughs.  She made me two pigtails with bobbles.  Sometimes I sneeze when she pulls hard.  Jenna is at school.  Mommy is with the baby, as usual, in the kitchen and I am waiting.  Today is grocery with Daddy day.  It’s his day off.  Friday.  I don’t really like to go with him because he always walks too fast and I worry that I’ll get lost.  He sometimes gets mad when I just wanted to look at an ant village on the sidewalk.  In the grocery store I get to have a ride in the cart, so I don’t mind—except when he leaves me in one aisle and goes to get something where I can’t see him anymore.  Then I feel lost and worried, and sometimes I cry.  He says, “C’mon now, be a big girl Susie”.

I am looking at the sparkly colour glass hanging in the window and I see the sun’s light bouncing off the bushes, the grass, and shining through the tree leaves.  My Daddy is having a shower and a shave.  Sometimes I like to shave with him because he puts the foamy white cream on my face and lets me use a razor but with the cover on of course.  But today, I saw the colour patches everywhere, and it shines and it looks be-u-ti-ful.  I like to press my squishy belly over and over into the back of the couch.  It pushes out a little tune “angh, angh, angh” that I made up by-self.  I like my song.

The world looks very pretty.  I wonder if the fairies are awake and busy in the bushes.  I know that they live there, but every time I crawl in to visit them they seem to have gone somewhere.  I wonder what fairies eat?  My Mommy sometimes gets annoyed with me when I try to visit the fairies because my clothes get a bit dirty.

O, I forgot about our little bird’s nest!  Here it is, right on the windowshelf!  There are tiny pieces of blue spotted eggshell in it.  My big sister Jenna found it in the backyard, and says it is hers, and one day she took it to her school to show to her friends.  I wish that I could go to school and have friends too.  I only have my little brother, but he pulls my hair and always smells like peepee.  And sometimes even more yucky.  Except when he has a bath—then he is really cute and I just want to hug him and kiss him.  But then my Mommy always says, that’s enough Susie, like I was doing something bad.

Maybe the fairies would like to see this nest.  Maybe they could use it to relax in.  It’s kind of like a round couch for them.  I could take it to them right now.  O, I can hear my Daddy on the stairs.

SUSIE MARIE!! GET OFF THE COUCH WITH YOUR SHOES ON!! I HAVE TOLD YOU A THOUSAND TIMES.  It is TIME to GO. Your face is COVERED in jam.  Go and have your mother clean it off.  Pat! Her face!  Quickly!

My Daddy is mad a lot.  He didn’t even see the colour patches.  I will sing him a song in the car and maybe he’ll be happier.  I am not going to look at ants, or cry, and I’m going to run beside him to keep up, and ask him if I can help him find the food that we need.

“Daddy, I will help you at groceries and be very good now, ok?”

“That’s my girl.  You look very pretty with your pigtails today.”