The Clearing

Mar 09, 2008 - 17:32 PM PST


The sky is clear today, she thought, as she swung back and forth attempting to reach the ends of the earth. The wind whisked by her, pressing against her skin but allowing her to slide right through. The tree that was holding her up was large, with limbs that resembled the wings of an eagle, cradling her as she soared through the air. She felt the willow tree waving back at her as she swung up past its highest branch.
She looked out into the distance and for miles she could see nothing but the high brown grass swaying as the cool breeze ruffled it. The clearing she had found one day was her secret. It was tucked way back in a nook and cranny area of her grandfather’s four mile farm. An explorer she was, always attempting to find out about things most people wouldn’t take the time to understand. She questioned anything and everything that she didn’t understand. She would go away to her meadow to think. Away from everyone and everything, she could hide behind her grass; it was her protection, a protection she never felt at the house where she lived.
The space was magnificent. Wide and ominous, it stretched to the center of her universe. The smell of cows and horses ran through her nose. Their stench reminded her of where she was hiding from. She could still hear old man Fred from the next farm over from her grandfather’s place. She knew, however, that he was just far enough away that she had to stretch her ear just enough to hear him. She thought to herself, no one will find me here, my meadow of safety.
To you and me, a meadow is an ordinary place, but to a child it is magical. She created a whole world in her meadow. She sees fairies flying on the wind bouncing on air pockets that sprinkle their fairy dust around in spirals that then flutter to the ground. Everything around her was enchanted. She could talk with the birds, the trees, the furry creatures that inhabit her secret place. They make her feel safe. She could tell them anything, and they listened and don’t judge her. She tells that that she wishes she could fly like a bird, far far away. The wind was a travel guide to the restless, telling them where to go and what their next adventure will be. She needed and adventure that day. Somewhere to go because she didn’t couldn’t stay where she was anymore.
Her mind wondered past where she could see…


Quinn-Anne was six when she was sent to live with her grandfather. Her momma and her daddy were both dead; killed in a drunken lover’s quarrel. She hid under her bed as that day as she heard her daddy call her momma a lying bitch. Quinn-Anne couldn’t see her momma and daddy, just their shadows. But she could recall the detail as if she was sitting right there front row and cent. She could recall the torn and tattered yellow and green flowered wallpaper. Her momma sitting on the right side of the kitchen close to the sink and fridge, having nowhere to go if he came at her. Her daddy was on the left near the backdoor and window. She could see the shadow of his feet on the table on the floor. Everything was sweating because it was so hot outside. The room felt tense. And it was because daddy was in a drunkin’ jealous rage.
He believed she was fuckin’ the mailman when her daddy was at work. Someone told him that the mailman came in one day and didn’t leave for an hour. Momma told him that the sink was leakin and there was water everywhere and that he had offered to help. Truth was there was a leek that day. Quinn-Anne had to clean up all the water when she got home from school. She saw the mailman peering under the skin when she walked in from school that day. But daddy wouldn’t believe her either. She was a lying bitch as well most days. He said he was going to kill her because she was a lyin’ whore. Momma just cried and cried. Kept sayin’, “I’m yours Albie, what would I sleep with the mailman fo’.”
Her daddy was holding his shot gun, Quinn-Anne could only see it shadow on the floor from where she was lyin, trying to be absolutely still. She didn’t even want to breathe. She felt the tears streamin’ down her face as she gasps her breath back into her mouth. Maybe she knew on some level what was about to happen and that she couldn’t stop it. He didn’t evenknow she was there. Momma just lied and said she wasn’t, because momma knew he would hurt her too.
She watched as her father walked over to her mother and slapped her. Quinn-Anne wanted to scream and run to her mother and shield her, but she knew she couldn’t, she had to be silent and get away some how to help her mother. Before she could even crawl out from her hiding place and run to safety, she heard a gunshot. “That’s right bitch,” she heard him shout. “I kilt that ass.” “Teach you to fuck around on me,” He mumbled as he kept drinkin’ sitting in that chair talkin’ like her momma was still alive. Quinn-Anne silently wept, he can’t know I am here. She waited, till she thought he was sleep. Her tinny under the bed world, just got smaller. She fought her urge to scream. She hid under her bed. The damp floor seeped through to her summer dress as she waited for silence.
The house was so quiet and still, he didn’t even hear her enter the kitchen. She looked at her mother and tears streamed down her face. Her moms brains all over the stove and the kitchen sink looking like someone was about to clean chitlins for Sunday dinner. She knew she only had a second before he would sense that she was there. She knew where momma kept her pistol. Momma had taught her how to shoot it. She crawled on the dusty hard wood floor, which was easier because it was so humid, attempting to not make a sound. She went to the drawer where her mother kept the gun. Pulled it out and crawled back into the kitchen.
As she stood up she pointed the gun at his head. She could hear her momma sayin’ in her head,” close yo right eye sweetie, look at where you aimin’.” Cock the gun and shoot. She replayed it over and over in her head. “Close yo right eye sweetie, look at where you aimin’. Cock the gun and shoot.” The silence was broken. The bullet ripped right through his head and out the window behind him. He was dead. Quinn-Anne passed out.
She woke up to a sea of police. Apparently no one heard the first shot, the shot that had killed her momma. But it was Quinn-Anne’s that woke the neighbors. Auntie Sallie ran over to the house after that second shot and saw the blood bath. Quinn-Anne had so much blood on her no one could tell if she was bleedin’ or had it just soaked in to her dress cause she laid their passed out. Auntie Sallie ran into the middle of the street screamin, “Lord have mercy, he kilt them both.” This woke up everyone, who at first, just thought Auntie Sallie was having one of her midnight fits, and they called the police because she was distrubin’ the peace. The police arrived to the same blood bath in the kitchen that had Auntie Sallie in an uproar.
Once she woke up, she told them the story of what happened. Her momma and daddy fightin’ about the mailman, daddy bein’ drunk and threatin’ momma and then him shootin her, all while she hid under the bed. She tole them what mamma had taught her, how to shoot her pistol. “Close yo right eye sweetie, look at where you aimin’. Cock the gun and shoot.” Tears ran down her face as she repeated those words. And at the end of her story she passed out again.
She still had dreams then, instead of nightmares, of a place where she would be safe. She could smell lavender in this place, but she had never been there. It comforted her as she slept. She hoped she would find this place and that it just wasn’t a dream. She just wanted to wake up and be far away from the place where her daddy killed her momma.

*****
The girl came back for a moment. She realized she wasn’t in that place anymore. The sun was bright on that day, but the little girl didn’t mind. She was blinded every time she looked up. It made her vision a little blurry. At times all she could see was spots in front of her. She wished she could go and live on the sun. But that was a dream that would never come true. The air made the sun much bearable. It was warm, but it cooled her down when it would blow. Lavender glazes the air and tickles the girl’s nose as she swings back and forth. She remembers that smell from a dream she had once. It made her look up and out into her grassy abyss. As she looked out into the distance she expected to see nothing, but that day, something was there.