A Life Like Other People's
One
I am four years old, and my world is very small.
It is a quiet, picturesque world full of white houses, potted roses and ikurrinas hanging from low balconies. The roads are grey, cobbled and sloping, leading up to steep, luscious green hills that cradle Leitza in their midst. It is paradise. Heaven on earth.
Over the hill is a land of wolves and treacherous seas.
There are many faces in my little world, but all of them are familiar. In my house, there is my grandmother, my grandfather and my ama. Next door is where Txingurri lives—a tiny boy of my age with beady green eyes and an affinity for cutting his own hair. His real name is Mikel but no one calls him that except for Senora Oyarzun, the evil witch that makes me finger paint and count to ten. One day Txingurri and I will kiss and he’ll like it and I won’t. That’s okay.
I have no father. He’s dead. He drowned when I was nine months old, just off the coast of Donostia. He was a fisherman, just like his father, and was found with a small picture of my ama and I on his person. I don’t know this yet, though. Right now, my aitatxo is in heaven playing with Txingurri’s old dog Romeo that had sore paws and had to go to sleep.
The stupid find pleasure in the suffering of others. These people don’t belong in my little world. These people tease me and call me a girl for wearing my ama’s perfume and painting my nails pink. I like to smell like my ama. I like to keep her with me when I’m stuttering over the story about the bad goat or practicing those tricky Ss on lined paper. I just like the way nail polish looks and smells.
My grandmother doesn’t like me wearing nail polish either, always tuts when she sees. She says I’m soft, that I need another aitatxo. I cry at this, snot coating my top lip until my ama notices, picks me up and quietens me down. I don’t want another one, though—and neither does my ama.
So we keep it a secret. After my bath, ama takes me to her room and paints the nails of my toes. I wiggle my toes and we giggle together. I squeal when she’s done, but she shushes me, finger to her red-sticky lips. There’s a smudge of lipstick on my temple as I go to bed that night, my feet stuck out of my covers, painted toes wiggling in the dark.
It is a quiet, picturesque world full of white houses, potted roses and ikurrinas hanging from low balconies. The roads are grey, cobbled and sloping, leading up to steep, luscious green hills that cradle Leitza in their midst. It is paradise. Heaven on earth.
Over the hill is a land of wolves and treacherous seas.
There are many faces in my little world, but all of them are familiar. In my house, there is my grandmother, my grandfather and my ama. Next door is where Txingurri lives—a tiny boy of my age with beady green eyes and an affinity for cutting his own hair. His real name is Mikel but no one calls him that except for Senora Oyarzun, the evil witch that makes me finger paint and count to ten. One day Txingurri and I will kiss and he’ll like it and I won’t. That’s okay.
I have no father. He’s dead. He drowned when I was nine months old, just off the coast of Donostia. He was a fisherman, just like his father, and was found with a small picture of my ama and I on his person. I don’t know this yet, though. Right now, my aitatxo is in heaven playing with Txingurri’s old dog Romeo that had sore paws and had to go to sleep.
The stupid find pleasure in the suffering of others. These people don’t belong in my little world. These people tease me and call me a girl for wearing my ama’s perfume and painting my nails pink. I like to smell like my ama. I like to keep her with me when I’m stuttering over the story about the bad goat or practicing those tricky Ss on lined paper. I just like the way nail polish looks and smells.
My grandmother doesn’t like me wearing nail polish either, always tuts when she sees. She says I’m soft, that I need another aitatxo. I cry at this, snot coating my top lip until my ama notices, picks me up and quietens me down. I don’t want another one, though—and neither does my ama.
So we keep it a secret. After my bath, ama takes me to her room and paints the nails of my toes. I wiggle my toes and we giggle together. I squeal when she’s done, but she shushes me, finger to her red-sticky lips. There’s a smudge of lipstick on my temple as I go to bed that night, my feet stuck out of my covers, painted toes wiggling in the dark.
♠ ♠ ♠
the style is an experiment. bear with me.