Dust in the Attic

The girl closed her eyes tightly and tried not to listen as their voices rose. I’m here.

Do they think I’m invisible?

She squeezed her thoughts but dared not say them. Stand quietly until it is over, which will be soon. It never lasts that long.

Their voices poked at her.

“Well, I just don’t understand it. Where could we have gone wrong? What could we have done to prevent her from turning out like this?”

It was coming. She knew it, felt it and set her body, waiting. Any place but here. I hate them and I hate me.

“….monster…”

There. There was that word.

“What kind of monster is she? She’s a monster. What are we doing wrong?”

Eyes tightly squeezed, knuckles white, body strained, tense. Now it was out. Soon it would be over. Earth, swallow me, lightning, strike me.

“…..so go to your room…”

Still and alone, she sat on the bed, swaying. They were ashamed of her. She was an embarrassment, a monster for all the world to see.

“Time will tell of stars that fell a million years ago memories can never take you back you can never go home anymore.”***

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“I have this recurrent dream,” she said to a wise friend one day. “I have it over and over so I think it must be significant. I don’t know what it means.

“My clothes are white and beautifully elegant but I am always walking in a very dusty old building. Sometimes it’s a barn. Sometimes it’s an attic filled with relics. Last night it was a lovely old house with nothing but antiques. I walk from room to dusty room, looking for something. I can’t remember what I seek.

“I meet people who are also finely dressed but seem to know why they are here and what they seek. I make conversation a bit, but then I realize I have to go to the bathroom so badly that I fear I’ll have an accident.

“I ask someone where the bathroom is. No one seems to know but then someone says, “There’s no bathroom! We just use this chair with the hole in it. See? There is a bowl beneath the seat on the floor.

“I think this is quite odd but the person says, “Don’t be silly. Everyone does this.”

So I sit on the chair quite primly while others walk by but then they stare and whisper, “I can’t believe she’s doing that!”

They slide away laughing and then I wake.

“What does this mean?” she asked her friend who watched her with pale eyes; he was in no hurry to answer and when he did speak it was carefully.

“I think,” he measured his words, “you have to go back to your childhood to understand your dream.”

She couldn’t breathe. “I want to be anywhere but here,” the words squeezed through her head.

Child, child

Sitting on the bed

Thinks nobody loves her

Wishes she were dead

Child child grown now

Heard everything they said

Thinks nobody loves her

Has it in her head

Mother father listen

Listen to what you say

Child child listens

For you are night and day

Child child looking in the mirror

Sees only what others saw

Not what’s really there

Child child

Sobs alone at night

Thinks nobody loves her

Weary from the fight.

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"You have kept count of my wonderings. Put my tears in your bottle; are they not in your book? (Psalm 56:8) *************** Angel Paper clay on Board, Corel Painter ************* *** (You Can Never Go Home-Moody Blues)