The August Project

Father. Father was, well, terrifying. To be honest, it was fairly expected. There was so much yelling, so much anger. It can’t be healthy for someone to have that many veins popping at one time in one area. I was going to ask if he was alright, but then I remembered one very important fact: I wanted to crawl into a hole and never ever come out.

That night I want to bed silently, fairly certain that mice were much louder than any of my footsteps. My sleep was pretty much short lived. Every time I closed my eyes, the scary man was yelling at me again. It was times like these that I missed being in the circus. Sure, it was hard work, but the few people I talked to were really nice. At home? Not so much.

The next morning I awoke to an empty house. My parents had left for work as usual, leaving me to my own devices. Of course my own devices usually meant a list of chores that I had to have completed before they came home. Today it was just the laundry, but I was specifically told not to leave our property. They were strange.

With a bored sigh and clothes on my back, rather than fuzzy pajamas, I found myself heading outside with a large basket of laundry. The screen door shut behind me, but I still felt like I was in a cage. A prison perhaps. Though, at least here I-- Wait, I was going to say that I got to wear what I wanted to wear, but that’s not really the case, is it?

The outside world was surprisingly bright, yet it seemed so dreary. The laundry basket was almost too much for my small arms to carry, so what I had been focusing the most on was putting the darn basket on the ground without letting it crush my toes. I let the basket drop to the ground with a large heave and bent down to retrieve the castaway dish towels.

Upon returning to an upright position, I looked out across the yard to the clothesline to see something fluttering in the breeze. With a perplexed gaze my confused hand wandered to the covered wire to reel it in. There was a soft creak as the wire slid through the rusty wheel and slowly the fluttering piece of mystery came closer and closer. As it came closer, I could finally make out what the object was. It wasn’t so much an object as a piece of litter, though how a piece of litter had situated itself onto the wire with the clothes peg I will never know.

I grasped onto the litter, set to through it out, until I realized it was not in fact litter, rather a piece of paper with writing on it. Then again, paper generally had writing or pictures on it. Unless of course it was blank or lined paper, because then it was waiting to get words and markings on it. I looked down to see what it said, in the off chance it was perhaps a note someone had misplaced.

Our Daring Little Lila, it read. Hey, that’s me. I should continue reading, yes?

First, I’m super apologetic about getting you in an inferno with your father. So now this note was talking to me? Why, that was rather odd, so I thought. How did this note possibly get me in trouble? I flipped it over to the other side to see if perhaps there was a note to Father, but there was most certainly nothing.

I’m sure that must not be fun. True that. But fret not, sweets, your fairy godmothers will save you! That was odd, more so than the note in general. Since when did I have a fairy godmother, let alone the plural of that? I suppose I never really did. I’ve never even read a fairy tale before. Do you need to read one to have a fairy godmother or the plural?

That is, if you find this note and still want to associate with us. Who the darn is us? Oh, right, the two fairy godmother people. Of course, I should have known that one. Sometimes after we meet people, we don’t see them again for a long while. Perhaps that was because these godmothers of mine, or potentially mine, had so many…wait, what would you call someone like me? A fairy godbaby? Maybe? I haven’t a clue. But alas, if a fairy godmother had a lot of fairy godbabies, then one would assume it would be hard to see them all the time.

But I digress…If you want to come chill with us anytime, then send us a note back (on the line) and we’ll sort something out, kay? What was I meant to be chilling? I looked up from the note and looked around for a moment. The breeze drifted by gently and a confused glance washed over my face. More importantly, the warm air washed over me. Maybe we were chilling ourselves so that we were not going to be affected by the outside temperature? Where was I going anyways? I wasn’t supposed to leave the property.

Or, if you think you can steal the phone for a few, then give me a ring! What did that even mean? I was most certainly not going to be stealing anything now or ever, nor was I going to be buying someone a ring. Husbands were supposed to give their wife a ring. Did my fairy godmother want me to propose? Something seemed a bit off about that. I’m listed, honey, it’s not that hard to find. Okay, now I was even more confused. Oh, I did not like this note.

With love, Jed &Boy Anthony. Oh, well then, that made more sense, though not a whole lot more sense. So they knew my fairy godmothers? Well, that was awful nice of them to attempt to bring me closer to these lovely old ladies, but it was pretty much a lost cause. For a moment I left the clothes on the porch so I could wander outside to procure a piece of paper and a pen. Then I wrote.

Dear people to whom it may interest who read things on this clothesline,

Though your language is questionable and I suggest you procure a dictionary before you attempt to write something legible again, I do thank you for your concern. If my fairy godmothers wish to see me, they can fly in their bubbles and land in my backyard. Or on the roof I suppose, though that could be potentially dangerous. Then again, if they are fairies then maybe they can’t get hurt.

Regardless, my freezer is inside the house and neither of you are allowed inside the house, nor am I allowed outside of my property. I apologize, but I am too young to be promising myself to anyone, nor am I going to purchase a ring. That’s backwards and I haven’t a clue what your ring size is. Plus stealing is illegal and I do not wish to spend my junior year in prison.

Maybe when Father likes you again, we can meet in my barn. There is plenty of room in there and Mother and Father never usually venture in there. I don’t know when that will be, but hopefully it will be sooner than later.

From the person who received your flapping piece of paper, Delilah.

I reread the note and with a satisfied smile I walked back outside. I found a clothes pin and clipped it to the line, then put the rest of the clothes out. I went back to my room when all that was said and done with and changed into my leotard, plus pulled my hair back. Time to head to the barn and practice.