Imagination’s Memoir
We once lived, her and I; I do not think there is much more of her for me left. But I’ll tell you, before we go.
In the summer, the cicadas sang loud and strong. Their voices surrounded, humming through us, through thick sweet air. Through hazy pink skies. The grounds were golden. They weaved and slithered in great arching tapestries. The dancing fronds crumbled and crunched in small pink fingers. The floors were soft and green until they were not. Until they crunched under too soft feet, prickling and scratching like little claws at the back door. Until they pricked our back where our shirt rode up or our neck where our clothes did not reach.
In the summer the sky was huge. The sky was cerulean. The sky was angry and dark and hot. It rumbled over us in great purple swirls. Turning the golden of the hills to the only color we saw. Gold and purple, the purple that is almost blue, almost gray, brilliant, strong.
We saw the twinkle lights blink in the yard, moving to each other’s rhythms, floating about, finding love. We danced with the floating lights, waving about little twigs of crackling light, little sparking sticks that we used to write our names into the thick of the silky blackness around us. In the summer, we laughed. We laughed for a good long time.
The air was sweet and thick, if I had to pick a word for it, it would be purple. A pale purple. Perhaps it would be periwinkle, the color of the little flowers that line the road we call God’s hill. The ones nobody cared to plant, but sprouted up anyway. On that hill there was a place where we could stand, where there was nobody to either end of us. No houses peeped at us, just clouds lazing by and golden fields, whispering in endless patterns that repeated. Again. And again. We, her and I, that is, liked to go up to God’s hill and sniff the honeysuckle air. We liked the small tucked away field that was green, not gold, where the thistles grew, and the purple flowers must surely have hailed from. We saw red and tanned deer standing, watching from this little field. Spying, for their barely baby-anymore fawns. We often liked to think we were one of them: in the summer.
We spent everyday together, every night. The world was one place that could be anything. Everything…
I remember a glorious, gold-gilded afternoon, where we were playing in the mountain tops, a mountain surrounded by a forest of thousand foot trees. We had been chased from our home in some tiny village by marauders and murders, savaging our entire family. Her parents were dead, her sister was dead, and everyone she had ever known and loved had left her. She was left alone to find a home in the great tree tops with some other lost little ones she had gathered up along the way. A little miscellaneous bunch of ducklings tottering about a forest. But the tree had become home, and the treetops a city. Great big forts had sprouted up with winding bridges of sycamore log and weeping willow chords. Everything was decorated with puffy cattails from the burbling streams hidden away under root.
This day, when the same black suited killers of our younger years came again, they were bit back. Fought off. Great bouts of power from our very own fists struck them down in the streets of root below. This was now our kingdom. Our great mountain to protect. We decided then, with our bunch of scruffy heroes, that we would grow old here, taking in those who passed to create a great army.
In the summer, when it got dark and the thickness of the air would become moisture on the weeds, we would have to leave the forest, our great kingdom. Our band of heroes would go off, become little ruffian kids once more, and we would retreat to the soft touches of our mama. The gentle sheets wrapped around us.
In another summer, she would forget about that great kingdom, from time to time. Every now and again we would visit it, bringing together our friendly heroes once more. But, there were many places to visit. Many places to forget. I still remember though.
One day, in another summer, we found a secret garden out past the golden tapestries, in the trees that separate the fields across the street, from the rooms with the gentle sheets and wonderful mothers. We were surrounded by chicken wire with little paper plates protecting onion and chive leafs. There was a little stream, not so much of a stream, but it wound through the grass growing very long above it. And some hidden persons had placed a dusty red-ish grate across it, no more than one good jump’s width. This was a secret place, a magical place. We found so much wonder in our secret garden in the woods. It became the birthplace of many great cities, and worlds, and tragedies.
Goodness, in the summer, we always loved a great tragedy. There would be blood, the death of family, the loss of friends, burning, cracking, disgusting experimentation that would split you from hip to throat, your insides hanging out. We would challenge our tragedy, that was the wonderful part of it, we would fight it off and be greater after. We would be fraught, wake up screaming and be protected by invisible friends who were always bigger and stronger and older than us. We were loved dearly and loved back in return. But of course it was all good fun. We were saved, and in turn, we did the saving. We saved ourselves and fought with bravery and were often struck down. But yes, this was the fun of it, in our perfect cities.
Of course, we still will have such wonderful bloody romps, but now only in our dreams. We do not get lost in them so often as we once did. To me, that is the great true tragedy of her life.
In yet another summer, there was this neighbor lady who watched us. A mama, but of a different sort than ours. On those summer days it was hot, not warm. We squashed potato beetles between rocks with some other more boyish ruffians,, that were the neighbor lady’s own. That day, the air did not feel as purple as before. That day, for the very first time, I felt a bit tired. The air was sluggish, and I felt crackly, and she had not seemed so happy for this adventure. But still, that night it was dark and cool and the stars had bursting lights, cracking between them, in shots of red and gold. The ruffian boys seemed not all together so bad, when we all got tossed into a world of chasing and villainy by the explosions bursting above us. In that summer, we giggled until we were sick of it. And then we went dancing in the hot steamy rain, buck-ass naked with not-so-little pink toes covered in moss and dirty stone bits. Howling our giggles. Smiles cracked our face in two, until our cheeks were so sore that we had to come up with a good sour expression to balance them again.
That summer it was still purple.
As she got bigger the summers got faster. I would flee, every now and again, when her world got so dark I couldn’t breath through the thickness of air. This always happened when she would become angry, yet, I couldn’t fathom what she was angry at. She would simply become boiling hot and mean.
When it was not summer, the bigger ones, like Mama but not, started to become less big. A few would snip at her in sugary ways, always making her bubble up. There were several that came and stamped out our beautiful worlds as we built them. At first, she was spitting mad but soon that faded into dullness, acceptance. They would say garbled words, I could hardly hear about the silliness of such things. She would always get on with her goings and our worlds would crumple away. This is when I would get tired again. When things always seemed too bright and then nothing at all.
It felt funny to me, as the summers passed, that the others, not bigger at all now, would say it was I who would change the world. That I would be the one to make a difference, to come up with new things. Things that they said would bring salvation, industry, and future. But then they would drag her away from me, make her do horrible, boring, silly things, all in the name of “education.” But I could never figure out what she was learning. All I could see was a sat-still-girl at an empty desk, filling out the paper just the same as every other ruffian.
In the summer, the days became short. I fear I was asleep for most of them. She left our wonderful Mama and only looked back every few weeks. But for the most part, she was no longer ruffian. She was no longer a hero, or an adventurer. She sat behind her desk and that was all. That was what they taught her to be.
And hah! I would not live in a gilded tower forever. But I also would not live in a dusty corner. I’d sooner be snuffed out entirely with her only speaking to me every few years. Perhaps she returned to me any time she saw a child playing in their own perfect city, or remembered that one little bird from a forgotten special thing. I kept falling asleep, but I still loved her, and I did not want to imagine her time without me. I kept waking up, and she kept looking a little older, a little wrinkled around her eyes. She had loved and been loved now. She had lost love now. I kept feeling dust around me. We did not visit the beautiful places so often anymore, just her desk.
When I woke up, I saw the real tragedies that others faced and it was not so fun. There was bitterness in our world. The floating twinkle lights were just these little bugs that got in your hair and when they were accidentally stepped on, created a sad smear of glowing paint. There was so much all around us, but I just couldn’t see it any longer.
In the summer, now that so many of those silly little worries went away, she remembers how to be a ruffian. I visit often. Not so often that she notices me, I think, wrinkled and gnarly as she is, but still. Still, every now and then we will romp around again. And how I love her so very much when we do. I have noticed that the world is brighter now when I wake up with her. There is more beauty to be seen. Silly little things are not so silly if they bring joy. So why shouldn’t they matter? And why must the desk? Why should they be little? I am still here. Always.
“Do not take away the weight of joy my love.” I think she’s learned to hear me now, after so many summers. I think she understands the silliness it all really is.
I love you my wonderment and I do not forget our romps. I will never forget our cities, and adventures. I still notice when you come to visit me, my dearest friend, and always will.
Amelia Weitknecht is a second year illustration student at the Fashion Institute Of Technology. She plans to pursue a career in illustrated children’s books and fine arts after college. Her artwork has been featured in the Northampton Press.