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| Humpty Dumpty | |
| By Katsinella | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 23 March 2007 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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This is a piece written some time ago but recently updated. I had written in the present tense but changed it to past tense for better readibilty. I am still looking for a style so any/all feedback welcome. It was a glorious late summer African afternoon. The sky stretched out above me in a piercing blue and the bright sunlight made everything look vibrant and alive. Standing on the porch, I looked down the sloping garden lawn at the old oak trees, the glinting swimming pool and the open gates at the end of the driveway. It was a thrilling day; my first birthday party. Well, not quite my first since I was already four years old but it was to be my first birthday party. On the porch was a low table laden with all sugared treats so beloved at parties; crisps, smarties, strawberry chews, little individually iced fairy cakes with raisins, a big chocolate cake with four unlit candles. There was a bowl of wrapped sweeties, a mixture of the hard-boiled ones, the chewy ones, and my favourites, the chocolate ones. Next to all this bliss, was a pile of paper plates and bright yellow napkins. Under the table stood a box of ice-cream cones, which I knew were for later. The smell of the honeysuckle growing upon the wooden fence alongside the garden mingled with the afternoon heat. My excitement made me fidgety and I alternated between looking at feast on the table and down the driveway from where I knew the guests would appear. My mother appeared through the French doors carrying more plates. She was slim, dressed in a long blue halter neck dress that accentuated her golden brown shoulders. She would always wear wonderful shoes and that day was no exception. She had on open toed sandals with straps that wrapped many times around her slim calves. I longed to wear them too but she’d tell me I was too small. And ever faithful was Oscar, the bullterrier who traipsed out the house after my mother. He found some shade against the wall, collapsing against it with a grunt. He was never crazy about the heat. ‘Go put some shoes on. The guests will soon be here’, my mother told me. I wasn’t an ardent fan of shoes. I’d been taking them off as soon as I was able much to the consternation of my mother. I loved to run barefoot on the grass and feel the cool crispness of the morning dew on the souls of me feet. But I knew that that was not to the time to argue to I followed instructions and went inside to find a pair of shoes. That morning, I had dressed in a blue nurse uniform with a white apron. My mother used to berate me over mismatched outfits and shoes. I always insisted on dressing myself, and on days when she had no energy, she’d let me win that argument and I would couple together outrageous combinations of colours, textures and fabrics. My choices still haunt me to this day when my mother digs out the family photo album. I ran back outside to the porch, shouting ‘Are they here yet?’ Oscar grunted from the shade and my mother told me that perhaps it was a little early. ‘What time was it?’ ‘It’s just before 4 o’clock’. ‘But wasn’t that the time when people should arrive?’ ‘Yes, but sometimes people run a little late so you need to be patient.’ Being four years old, it was my last year at nursery school and my mother had promised a proper birthday party. My requirements were few as I wasn’t experienced in these occasions but the excitement was uncontrollable none the less. My mother had made a number of invitations. We were new to the area so not knowing the other mother’s, she’d asked the nursery school teacher to distribute the invitations. 16:05 – I peered down to the gates and could see no cars. 16:15 – I looked at my mother sitting on a beach chair on the porch and I asked her where everyone was. She looked up from her magazine ‘I don’t know, darling, but I am sure they will arrive all at the same time soon.’ 16:35 – I sat on the steps with my chin in my hands. I had kicked my shoes off and waited to hear a reprimand but none came. I looked back at the party table and the cake had been covered with some thin netting to protect it from the flies. The occasional fly buzzed lazily over the table. 16:40 – ‘Mummy….’ ‘I know my sweetie, maybe they’re lost.’ 16:45 – Oscar got up slowly, his stiff movements showing his age, and walked over to me. He sat on the steps next to me and we both looked down towards the gates but there was nothing to see. By 5 o’clock, my mother decided that no one was coming to my party. I felt numb. How does this happen? Did they forget? Did they get the wrong date? Did my mother forget to give out the invitations? No, my mother appeased me on all accounts. Something must have happened. In a moment of lucid four year old logic, I asked her how could all the people she invited been involved in the same thing. Then I started to cry. The tears poured down my little face and my chest heaved as I gasped for air. Oscar licked my hand to show his compassion. My mother picked me up, sat down on the beach chair, put my head on her shoulder and let me cry. I couldn’t see her face but I could feel the tension in her body. ‘No one likes me’ I sputtered between heaving sobs, ‘that’s why no-one came to my birthday party’. My mother tried to soothe me to no avail. I looked over her shoulder down to the garden. The garden was still green, the light still bright but I felt like I was broken into a million pieces and even my mother’s love and hugs couldn’t put me back together again.
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