Post by liliacfleur on Apr 21, 2007 13:40:16 GMT -5
This was something I found in a folder on my computer, so I thought I'd share it. Any constrictuve criticism or advice is always welcome.
I remember it as though it were yesterday, although it was years ago now.
The sunlight woke me up. It filtered through my blinds, casting slanting golden lines across my pillow, and I stirred reluctantly. I had gotten to sleep quite late the night before, so understandably I didn’t want to get up, but once I was awake I found it impossible to drift back off. A flurry of excited birdsong sounded from outside my window, and I wondered how I’d managed to sleep through it.
Straining my ears again, I heard the clanking of pots and pans from the kitchen, and the warm smell of fresh coffee drifted through my partially open door. I’d been rather disappointed the first time that I’d tried my father’s coffee - it hadn’t tasted as good as it smelled.
It didn’t take long for me to wash, dress and hastily comb my hair once I was fully awake, and before long I was taking the stairs two at a time, the worn old wooden banister smooth under my hand. Reaching the kitchen door, I was greeted by the sight of my two brothers already sitting at the kitchen table, watching my mother with badly hidden impatience as she bustled around, buttering toast and frying eggs.
Mum turned around as I sat down, with one of her wide smiles and a warm greeting. It was a hot day; the windows were thrown open, letting the fresh scent of mown grass reach me. My brothers were talking excitedly, but my father was nowhere to be seen. He was already out in the fields, getting ready for the day’s work. My brothers would be going out to help him soon - sure enough they left their seats a few minutes later. They’d always been fascinated by the heavy machinery. I’d never been that interested in it, myself.
Instead of running down the familiar path to the fields where my father’s tractor would be rumbling and vibrating loudly, much to the amazement of my two brothers, I took a different path instead. I crossed the garden in only my socks towards the gnarled old oak tree near the fence.
Two years ago, in what they obviously thought was a supreme act of defiance, my brothers had dragged a tyre that they had found near the village into the garden and, stealing a length of rope from my father’s shed, had made a makeshift swing on one of the oak tree’s lower branches. I remember how they had spent the whole afternoon setting it up, and then afterwards I had heard their laughs and excited shouts echoing out well into the evening as they enjoyed their handiwork. Mother, as though to show them that she was still in control of what they did, had gone out the next day and cleaned the tyre thoroughly, tying their knots more securely and transforming it into a proper, safe swing.
I think that rather spoiled the effect for them and they grew less fond of their creation, but I liked to use it now.
The sunny afternoon was whiled away with one arm looped around the rope, watching my toes skim the grass. Sometimes, when I closed my eyes and leaned right backwards, I would shoot up even higher than before and it would feel as though I were flying. I remember hearing the low hum of an aeroplane passing overhead, and wishing that I could go up in one, just for the fun of soaring higher than the birds.
Eventually my father came back into the house again, red-faced and tired looking. The day’s work had been completed, and he sat at the kitchen table talking cheerfully while my mother got him a drink. I heard the crackle and buzz of the radio as they turned it on and moved closer to the house to lean against the kitchen door.
A man’s voice rang out through the quiet kitchen, announcing a tide of new deaths in far off places that I vaguely recognised the names of but did not know much about. As the news became grislier and more upsetting, my mother looked up and saw me standing there. At once she crossed the room and switched off the radio, heaving an unsteady sigh.
Later on, I walked with her to the fields where my brothers were collecting the last of the harvest, loading it up in bales so that we could store it safely away through the night. A whole season’s work would be ruined if we could not collect it in and get the golden stalks to where it was cool and dry.
The late afternoon sun reflecting off of the piled stalks gave everything a golden glow which contrasted with the cornflower blue sky, and I laughed, running towards my brothers. One of them picked me up, hanging me upside down. I shrieked and kicked, demanding to be put down at once, but I loved it really and he knew it. Eventually, out of breath and red-faced, I was dumped unceremoniously to the ground. I rolled over onto my back, still giggling, and it was then that I heard a cry go up in the air.
The younger of my two elder brothers was crouched low to the ground as I ran over to him, and as I neared him he stood up, face pale. My laughter died on my lips as I eyed his clasped hands with a mixture of curiosity and apprehension. As I watched, a solitary drip of something dark red and sticky ran through his fingers and I backed away, horrified at the sight. I did the only thing that I knew how to do in such a situation - I called for my mother.
Swallowing nervously, I peered over his shoulder and into his hands. A mouse was curled there, violent shivers wracking it’s tiny body. My eyes purposely avoided the blood-matted fur on one side. Together we ran, my brother still cradling the tiny creature in his hands, towards where my mother was standing, and she turned towards us at my call. I saw her eyes widen at what she saw, but I knew that everything would be alright now that she was here. She’d always made grazed knees, cut elbows and bruises as good as new.
My brother’s face was uncharacteristically grave as he stared down at the fragile little creature in his hands, and I bit my lip nervously, glancing between my mother and the mouse. It didn’t even shrink away as she leaned in towards it, her finger brushing it’s side gently. It seemed as though it knew that she had come to save it. Now I know that it was simply in too much pain to care anymore, but the thought gave me hope at the time.
I looked up with imploring eyes into my mother’s face.
“You can fix him, can’t you?” I pleaded quietly. She didn’t answer, just stared at the little mouse in my brother’s hands. I turned to look too, and felt my chest tighten. It’s tiny eyes were burning over-bright in it’s pain, it’s chest rising and falling rapidly in shallow, agonising gasps… But even as I watched the light began to fade from it’s eyes, leaving them glassy and staring, and it’s fragile chest heaved no more. It was dead.
It was dead, and I couldn’t believe it.
I’d never seen anything die before, and to me the death of this nameless field mouse was as tragic as the demise of any human. I felt my eyes burning with unshed tears that slowly but surely spilled down my cheeks, dripping off of my chin onto my clothes. Without a word, I turned and sped away across the field, falling down into a tangled heap against the low stone wall.
My eyes travelled slowly across the field, and I realised what we had done. My family - my country - the whole world. We were destroying what wasn’t ours to destroy, murdering those who couldn’t defend themselves, raping the soil.
Some time later I felt my mother sit down beside me, but didn’t look up.
“We buried him, in the flowerbed near the swing,” she told me softly. I nodded, sniffing, and continued to look down at my feet. I was glad that we’d given him a proper send-off, I decided as my mother went back to the house. It made it seem as though he were important, as though he weren’t just some little mouse that didn’t mean anything to anyone. I wondered if he’d had a family, somewhere out in the golden field. A little mouse-wife who was wondering why her mouse-husband wasn’t coming home, and little mouse-babies who would miss their mouse-daddy terribly. At this thought, I began to cry anew.
Climbing back to my feet, I began to shamble through the decapitated stalks, my eyes running across the ground, until at last I spotted something. An intricately woven nest was laying, smashed, upon the ground. Inside, a honey coloured mouse was cowering, obviously terrified but still crouching protectively over her young. Naked and miniscule, I realised with a horrible jolt that most of them were dead. I sank to my knees beside the nest, trying vainly not to cry, and gently scooped the nest up in my hands. The mother mouse squirmed frantically, gazing up at me with terrified and - perhaps I imagined it - defiant eyes, and I felt a surge of hope as I realised that the tiny mouse beneath her was still alive.
Calling out at the top of my voice, I raced back towards the garden. My mother appeared at the window, looking slightly alarmed and rather confused as I ran towards her with the family clutched safely in my hands.
The dead babies were buried next to their father (I didn’t know for sure, but I liked to think that I’d reunited him with his children one last time), while the mother and her surviving child were placed safely on the lawn. Mother gave me a handful of the nuts that we use to feed the birds, and I placed them in a neat pile next to the nest.
I spent the evening scouring the fields, gathering the survivors and carrying them with utmost care back to the garden, where they were placed gently on the lawn, with scraps of bread, sunflower seeds and anything that I could find to make the refugees more comfortable. Crouching on my knees in the fields, my fingertips red with the blood of the innocent, I told myself that this was how I could remedy the wrong that we had done to them.
By dusk our garden was filled with the rustling of broken rests, the weak, piping squeaks of tiny babies calling for their mothers, and (I hoped and imagined), the relieved little squeaking of families reuniting again.
I don’t know why this memory has stayed to vividly in mind until this day. Perhaps it was the shock of realising that we humans could cause so much death and destruction by doing something that, up until then, I had seen as totally normal. Perhaps it was because, after that afternoon, I wasn’t so very naïve anymore.
I remember it as though it were yesterday, although it was years ago now.
The sunlight woke me up. It filtered through my blinds, casting slanting golden lines across my pillow, and I stirred reluctantly. I had gotten to sleep quite late the night before, so understandably I didn’t want to get up, but once I was awake I found it impossible to drift back off. A flurry of excited birdsong sounded from outside my window, and I wondered how I’d managed to sleep through it.
Straining my ears again, I heard the clanking of pots and pans from the kitchen, and the warm smell of fresh coffee drifted through my partially open door. I’d been rather disappointed the first time that I’d tried my father’s coffee - it hadn’t tasted as good as it smelled.
It didn’t take long for me to wash, dress and hastily comb my hair once I was fully awake, and before long I was taking the stairs two at a time, the worn old wooden banister smooth under my hand. Reaching the kitchen door, I was greeted by the sight of my two brothers already sitting at the kitchen table, watching my mother with badly hidden impatience as she bustled around, buttering toast and frying eggs.
Mum turned around as I sat down, with one of her wide smiles and a warm greeting. It was a hot day; the windows were thrown open, letting the fresh scent of mown grass reach me. My brothers were talking excitedly, but my father was nowhere to be seen. He was already out in the fields, getting ready for the day’s work. My brothers would be going out to help him soon - sure enough they left their seats a few minutes later. They’d always been fascinated by the heavy machinery. I’d never been that interested in it, myself.
Instead of running down the familiar path to the fields where my father’s tractor would be rumbling and vibrating loudly, much to the amazement of my two brothers, I took a different path instead. I crossed the garden in only my socks towards the gnarled old oak tree near the fence.
Two years ago, in what they obviously thought was a supreme act of defiance, my brothers had dragged a tyre that they had found near the village into the garden and, stealing a length of rope from my father’s shed, had made a makeshift swing on one of the oak tree’s lower branches. I remember how they had spent the whole afternoon setting it up, and then afterwards I had heard their laughs and excited shouts echoing out well into the evening as they enjoyed their handiwork. Mother, as though to show them that she was still in control of what they did, had gone out the next day and cleaned the tyre thoroughly, tying their knots more securely and transforming it into a proper, safe swing.
I think that rather spoiled the effect for them and they grew less fond of their creation, but I liked to use it now.
The sunny afternoon was whiled away with one arm looped around the rope, watching my toes skim the grass. Sometimes, when I closed my eyes and leaned right backwards, I would shoot up even higher than before and it would feel as though I were flying. I remember hearing the low hum of an aeroplane passing overhead, and wishing that I could go up in one, just for the fun of soaring higher than the birds.
Eventually my father came back into the house again, red-faced and tired looking. The day’s work had been completed, and he sat at the kitchen table talking cheerfully while my mother got him a drink. I heard the crackle and buzz of the radio as they turned it on and moved closer to the house to lean against the kitchen door.
A man’s voice rang out through the quiet kitchen, announcing a tide of new deaths in far off places that I vaguely recognised the names of but did not know much about. As the news became grislier and more upsetting, my mother looked up and saw me standing there. At once she crossed the room and switched off the radio, heaving an unsteady sigh.
Later on, I walked with her to the fields where my brothers were collecting the last of the harvest, loading it up in bales so that we could store it safely away through the night. A whole season’s work would be ruined if we could not collect it in and get the golden stalks to where it was cool and dry.
The late afternoon sun reflecting off of the piled stalks gave everything a golden glow which contrasted with the cornflower blue sky, and I laughed, running towards my brothers. One of them picked me up, hanging me upside down. I shrieked and kicked, demanding to be put down at once, but I loved it really and he knew it. Eventually, out of breath and red-faced, I was dumped unceremoniously to the ground. I rolled over onto my back, still giggling, and it was then that I heard a cry go up in the air.
The younger of my two elder brothers was crouched low to the ground as I ran over to him, and as I neared him he stood up, face pale. My laughter died on my lips as I eyed his clasped hands with a mixture of curiosity and apprehension. As I watched, a solitary drip of something dark red and sticky ran through his fingers and I backed away, horrified at the sight. I did the only thing that I knew how to do in such a situation - I called for my mother.
Swallowing nervously, I peered over his shoulder and into his hands. A mouse was curled there, violent shivers wracking it’s tiny body. My eyes purposely avoided the blood-matted fur on one side. Together we ran, my brother still cradling the tiny creature in his hands, towards where my mother was standing, and she turned towards us at my call. I saw her eyes widen at what she saw, but I knew that everything would be alright now that she was here. She’d always made grazed knees, cut elbows and bruises as good as new.
My brother’s face was uncharacteristically grave as he stared down at the fragile little creature in his hands, and I bit my lip nervously, glancing between my mother and the mouse. It didn’t even shrink away as she leaned in towards it, her finger brushing it’s side gently. It seemed as though it knew that she had come to save it. Now I know that it was simply in too much pain to care anymore, but the thought gave me hope at the time.
I looked up with imploring eyes into my mother’s face.
“You can fix him, can’t you?” I pleaded quietly. She didn’t answer, just stared at the little mouse in my brother’s hands. I turned to look too, and felt my chest tighten. It’s tiny eyes were burning over-bright in it’s pain, it’s chest rising and falling rapidly in shallow, agonising gasps… But even as I watched the light began to fade from it’s eyes, leaving them glassy and staring, and it’s fragile chest heaved no more. It was dead.
It was dead, and I couldn’t believe it.
I’d never seen anything die before, and to me the death of this nameless field mouse was as tragic as the demise of any human. I felt my eyes burning with unshed tears that slowly but surely spilled down my cheeks, dripping off of my chin onto my clothes. Without a word, I turned and sped away across the field, falling down into a tangled heap against the low stone wall.
My eyes travelled slowly across the field, and I realised what we had done. My family - my country - the whole world. We were destroying what wasn’t ours to destroy, murdering those who couldn’t defend themselves, raping the soil.
Some time later I felt my mother sit down beside me, but didn’t look up.
“We buried him, in the flowerbed near the swing,” she told me softly. I nodded, sniffing, and continued to look down at my feet. I was glad that we’d given him a proper send-off, I decided as my mother went back to the house. It made it seem as though he were important, as though he weren’t just some little mouse that didn’t mean anything to anyone. I wondered if he’d had a family, somewhere out in the golden field. A little mouse-wife who was wondering why her mouse-husband wasn’t coming home, and little mouse-babies who would miss their mouse-daddy terribly. At this thought, I began to cry anew.
Climbing back to my feet, I began to shamble through the decapitated stalks, my eyes running across the ground, until at last I spotted something. An intricately woven nest was laying, smashed, upon the ground. Inside, a honey coloured mouse was cowering, obviously terrified but still crouching protectively over her young. Naked and miniscule, I realised with a horrible jolt that most of them were dead. I sank to my knees beside the nest, trying vainly not to cry, and gently scooped the nest up in my hands. The mother mouse squirmed frantically, gazing up at me with terrified and - perhaps I imagined it - defiant eyes, and I felt a surge of hope as I realised that the tiny mouse beneath her was still alive.
Calling out at the top of my voice, I raced back towards the garden. My mother appeared at the window, looking slightly alarmed and rather confused as I ran towards her with the family clutched safely in my hands.
The dead babies were buried next to their father (I didn’t know for sure, but I liked to think that I’d reunited him with his children one last time), while the mother and her surviving child were placed safely on the lawn. Mother gave me a handful of the nuts that we use to feed the birds, and I placed them in a neat pile next to the nest.
I spent the evening scouring the fields, gathering the survivors and carrying them with utmost care back to the garden, where they were placed gently on the lawn, with scraps of bread, sunflower seeds and anything that I could find to make the refugees more comfortable. Crouching on my knees in the fields, my fingertips red with the blood of the innocent, I told myself that this was how I could remedy the wrong that we had done to them.
By dusk our garden was filled with the rustling of broken rests, the weak, piping squeaks of tiny babies calling for their mothers, and (I hoped and imagined), the relieved little squeaking of families reuniting again.
I don’t know why this memory has stayed to vividly in mind until this day. Perhaps it was the shock of realising that we humans could cause so much death and destruction by doing something that, up until then, I had seen as totally normal. Perhaps it was because, after that afternoon, I wasn’t so very naïve anymore.
