A Country Garden

A summer day with a kind wind, some sun, some cloud, absence of mosquitoes, and a century-and-a-half-old log home set on its own 5-1/2-acre lot, situated on the Canadian Shield. What better venue to lovingly tend a country garden than this, surrounded by granite outcroppings, pines, cedars, and maples.

Behind and well below the house, a wetland full of aquatic plants, which in winter is transformed into a skating pond. On summer evenings bats flit about, during the day dragonflies. Orioles, goldfinches, woodpeckers, bluejays, cardinals, chickadees and nuthatches, and a host of other birds come to visit. Returning hummingbirds teach their young to trust the garden-tender, and their twists and turns in flight inches from her head are a living delight.

Chipmunks and squirrels come around regularly to raid the bird offerings. Deer come along to nibble at the apples hung on low branches. Black water snakes find comfortable resting places in the rock gardens. Foxes linger, undeterred by the presence of the gardener's many dogs. The two cats that also reside there, are house cats, tethered when outside, or content to lie in the sun in chipmunk-safe enclosures.

This, then is a Paradise. Welcome. Browse. Admire.

On Speaking Terms

Tie up the 'phone' lines? They don't do that
anymore. Telecommunications have been
revolutionizing teens' compulsive behaviour;
the dire need to 'keep in touch', not to miss
out on instant information, playing the
'What's up?' game to remain involved and
cool, else what meaning is there in life? It's
the who that you know and the what that
accompanies it that explains the why you know.

And anyone of adult vintage who enquires
of the whyfores is beyond redemption, a sad
relic of the dim, unfortunately disadvantaged past.
Then, people spoke to one another in audible,
emotive, reflective tones expressing the purpose
of communication. The evolution of progressive
humankind as a communicating species has
advanced to the unspoken, yet remotely
effective use of text, as in text messaging.

Where nimble thumbwork provides the medium
for the incessant messaging and the tiny, perfect
communication devices of electronic perfection
gift their users with a cornucopia of choices,
from photography to music, videos to anarchic
devolution. There are no tasks which cannot
be complemented by attention devoted to an
unending stream of incoming calls, all requiring
the instant protocol of informed and blithe response.

From the bedroom to the classroom, the bathroom
to the lunch counter, shopping excursions to
dinner with the family; at a cottage, in a sailboat,
none too remote but that instant messaging
need be interrupted. An entirely new way of
life, a life-force has been re-engineered and the
blissful 'contact' sport engaged in a celebration
of this brave new information-contact world.

Creatures of the Wood

His natural element happens to be the
urban forest; the trees, the running creek,
songbirds, and the turning seasons. The
small creature presents himself boldly,
a mild confrontation between a feral creature
and the humans whose place within nature
has long since evolved to a relationship of
manipulation to service humankind's needs.
Here, the wildly clever creature manipulates
humankind to serve his little deceits.

Among like creatures he is unique and
readily identifiable, a delicately-conformed,
tail-less squirrel, among its robust-bodied,
plume-tailed peers. Nothing frail about his
confidence. His long-ago approach in
recognition of the purpose of our quotidian
forays into the urban forest forged a casual
bond between these animal species.

Our daily times of entry into the wooded
ravine may vary, but upon descent we are
invariably met with the suddenly-alert
presence of a multitude of chipmunks,
squirrels (black, red and grey) and even
curious crows, all anxiously seeking their
daily peanut homage from their admirers.

Some are bold enough to wait out the
ritual of deposit and withdrawal, aware
that neither we nor our exceedingly small
canine companions pose a threat. Others
scamper ahead fruitlessly searching the
conventional caches that have not yet
been deposited for their delectation.

It is only Stumpy, carefully breaking open
the shells; consuming one, two, three of the
nuts. Then responds to our quietly audible
invitation to receive another. When, perchance,
he is offered a two-chamber shell, he puzzles
over the absence of the usual-third one,
scrabbling through the empty shell pieces
to ensure he has not overlooked the missing
nut, before returning to us for yet another.

Through the hour's perambulations of each
day upon a network of trails, we are greeted
by his assured approach at various junctions
along his range. We watch, bemused, as he
turns the nut-case in his clever paws, and
sometimes decides to decamp with his treasure,
back turned confidently toward us, tuft where
tail should be peculiarly transformed into a rabbit.

The Banal To The Great

The human mind is a fertile field, a wondrous
construct of Nature's deliberate and fastidious
design, a storehouse of intelligence, memory,
experience, emotions, curiosity, bold
endeavour, and need. It is capable of
immeasurable attainment and growth;
equally that of boredom and calcification.

Residing within the nascent consciousness
of an infant, it stores vast realms of
exposures and eurekas to coalesce and
develop to ultimately present, through
trial and error, imagination and witness,
the gradual emergence of a solitary, unique
and formidably able reflective intellect.

The complexity of the process whereby
similar backgrounds and exposures result
in variations on the broadest of themes and
the narrowest of apprehensions a magnificent
testimony to both Nature and the nature of
humanity. But for opportunity goes a
mind incapable of reaching its potential.

Genetic inheritance - another manifestation
of Nature's original blueprint, the initial
propulsion wedded to circumstance and
eventual self-realization. The child avidly
observes, emulates, chooses its protocol,
prioritizes and proceeds to become what it
wills itself to achieve throughout a lifetime.

Stimulation, purpose, values and the
exercise of free will may produce the
richness of a mind tuned to nuance and
probabilities. Knowledge, untrammelled
by the presence of unaware triteness, of
popular design so successful in producing
the inevitable herd, rarely the herdsman.

The Urban Woods

They exist, those rare and wonderful urban
wild spots; deep wooded ravines, home to birds,
mammals, winged insects, wildflowers, creeks
and reptiles, living among the forest trees;
great pines and maples, spruce, fir and ash.
For nearby residents, a green growing oasis,
a respite from the roofs and roads of harried
urban life, our mean little plots and smaller
nature-emulating, envious, inadequate gardens.

Into the ravine dip nature seeking residents
of networks of nearby streets, laid out around
the perimeter of the woods and winding ravine,
to amble and breathe cleansed air, to hear the
birdsong, see the flowers in their changing seasons,
the aspect of the creek and its banks, the trees
and the trails brushed with autumn's fallen
leaves, dense layers of snow, spring awakening
and summer's bated-breath release to ease.

Then summer upon us, school is closed and
children ride their bicycles on the trails, dabble
below in the clay bed and banks of the creek and
its tributaries, tie ropes on long, overhanging
limbs of old trees and swing from the groaning
branches. Tender new growth on shrubs and
trees torn and broken, lying sadly askew.

Tree trunks bear the marks of saws almost
severing the living presence. Muskrat and
beaver are harassed, squirrels targeted.
Paintball smudges on trees, wet balls littering
trails. Rude graffiti sprayed upon wooden bridges,
curses carved on grey beech bark. Fires lit on
benches, bridges and within hollow old pines.

Our valued, beloved, living urban forest.
Nature, meeting the unbridled exuberance and
unfettered disrespect of youth unbound. This
natural green and growing place of constant
renewal and discovery, sacred to many, an
disposable, casual venue of opportunity for
resentful kids to vent their detached contempt
and destroy the ineffable beauty around us.

Electrifying...!

The day heavily laden with suffocating heat,
humidity so breath-stifling random breezes
simply ineffectual, and the sun, a relentless
source of lighted gaseous heat, beaming its
implacable purpose, comfortably seated above,
in that huge blue bowl of the sky resolutely
capping our all-encompassing atmosphere
below at Nature's undeniable command.

As dusk then darkness descended, bringing
shelter from the blazing orb, a brief
re-acquaintance with the lights of our
Solar System hosts, those stars and planets
revolving satellites and ice-laden stardusted
"shooting stars"; the nocturnal travellers
of galaxies beyond our Milky Way as witness.

The sun, unseen but in the moon and planets,
sending out its flares, stirs vast winds and
dark clouds assemble to screen the heavenly
display unleashing combative dark formations
clashing their wills to produce the massive
energy of electrical sheets and shoots of
white-hot daggers coursing the sky's dark vault.

Deep, urgent rumbles from afar, rapidly
overtaking the night space rocks the turgid
air and cools the atmosphere. Titanic clashes
and sky-ripping, brilliant displays of angry light
manifest polarities of dark brooding and
transfixing light. Behold, ferocious nature!

Salute!

There are those who have lived their
lives going where life has taken them.
Passively responding to what seems to
happen to them, stifling curiosity,
unfamiliar with aspirations, simply fitting
themselves in, sideways, backwards,
fully frontal; no misgivings, trusting that
some kind fate awaits them, a kindly
overseer directing the stage and they,
obeying, stage left, stage right, until they
leave that stage, without fully inhabiting it.

And then. There are those whose
numbers shrink before the masses who
move with the flow of their determined
lives, represented by an entirely different
impetus. Wholly their own construction.
Laboriously fashioned of materials whose
function, mode and presentation remains
unknown to the others - the sleeping
life-walkers. Completed purpose eludes.

They few, piqued and driven by curiosity
the mystique of life and nature, seek
answers and advantage their lives by
exerting themselves to explore ideas,
relationships, and the entire world of
curious but rewarding quests. Developing
boldly consummate skills in their forthright
meeting of challenges of the mind and those
of knowing the elements of existence.
Carefully parting the curtains of placid
disinterest to reveal the goal of self.

Exquisite, But Edible?

A blaze of colour strikes the eye, a wide,
bright orange patch where surely we recall
none existed only yesterday. Well-textured
and mature, even at that distance, teasing
from its perch on the opposite bank of the creek.
Look, there it is, see it, now? Look beyond the
tree trunks, the leafy branches swooping
low, there, over there, you can't miss it.

The sun glances on the bright colour,
enhances it, a shining, nuanced reflection
of its own wild and fiery presence reflected
from the sky down to our wooded ravine.
Orange, among the browns and greys and
surrounding greens of overhanging boughs
resplendent in summer leaves and coniferous
needles, there it is, that patch of fungi,
challenging and urging us to approach.

One who thinks he knows, names them
chanterelles and gamely plucks one. Its
fragrance compelling as its brilliant hue, one's
mouth waters at the imagined irresistibility
of its divine taste, the image of this
dinner-plate-sized treat gently simmered
in butter and proudly served on a
porcelain platter; no other thing to disturb
its pre-eminently persuasive presence.

But wait, admire its fiery colour, the
immensity of its fungal growth, the beauty
of its finely-textured gills, another wonder
of Nature's devising; promised and delivered
bounty. Her exquisite gifts to her creatures,
like the transcendent lilt of the cardinal,
carmine-hued above us, giving warning of
survival-potential in casual misidentification.

A Summer's Work

Too ambitious a burden for a girl
with one year's teen experience, she
has nonetheless agreed she would
sacrifice much of her summer to the
mindful care of siblings, a boy and a
girl; she five, he ten. Little dreaming
the difficulties she would face.

More than adept at preparing meals
with a care to ensuring nutrition, she
is challenged by a child who would
prefer to exist on junk food. A child
whose response to 'don't do that!'
when her brother cries for help as
she tosses items at his head, is to
scream at the minder, and violently
attack her, inflicting bruises, instead.

Privileged children of a privileged
society, with video games, TVs of their
own, computers and cellphones. Outdoor
games, a trampoline and a well-behaved
dog, a mournful beagle, much put upon.
The boy insists the sitter-minder is
obligated to play games with her charges.
She assents on occasion, and the spirit
of the games conclude with the little
girl in a furious temper tantrum.

The teen's regard is that of personal
responsibility, to ensure the siblings do
not inflict lasting wounds upon one another,
and she herself tends to her purple bruises
once home. On return from work, the
siblings' mother's rote question is
'and how were things today?', as though
she were truly concerned and interested.

Apprised of how things commenced and
concluded that day, the mother assures
the teen she will 'talk to' her children.
Which avails precisely nought. Defiance,
refusals, denials, dismay and dysfunction
continue. There is no riot act to be read.

The Haunting

She had confidence in herself. In her own intelligence. She felt that she knew her mind was sharper than those of most others her age. She seemed to be able to see what they did not. She had no confidence in the greater world around her. She could see what was happening. People behaving as though they owned something that others were lacking, and because of that, they were better, somehow more elevated - certainly in their own opinion - and that allowed them to mock others, avoid them, pity them, and have contempt for them. She had learned all of that because she experienced all of that.

From the time she was small and lithe and her mother thought she was athletically-inclined and enrolled her in a dance studio for the summer, so she could gain confidence and grace, she was taught such lessons. She hadn’t wanted to go, had no intention of allowing herself to go, but what could she do? She was only six years old, and had to do what she was commanded to do. Entreated, convinced, that it would be of huge benefit to her. To be fair to her mother how was she to know that her daughter would be placed in a group of young girls who had already had the experience of two years’ exposure to the program?

Girls who snickered when she was unable to make the right moves; laughed at her awkwardness, and refused to partner with her, always moved away from her. Pay no mind, her mother said. They’d get over it once they saw that she was as competent as they were. Anyway, her mother said, that’s what girls are like. Little or older they gather in exclusionary cliques and there is always someone who looks in from the outside, spurned. She should know, her mother said, she was one of those ‘outside’ kids.

Take it from her, she always said, you’re better off being with people more like yourself. The ones who think they’re special, never are. They’re just self-absorbed, petty, vindictive and nasty and you want nothing to do with them anyway. That wasn’t how she felt, though, moving up through the elementary school grades, watching the pretty, self-confident girls gather admirers around them, girls almost as pretty, but never as confident, drawn to the stand-outs in the class, wanting to be just like them. She was always with one or two other girls who were as left-out as she was. And even then, found little in common with them. But it did represent companionship, however lacking. And some measure of social acceptance.

Now she was older, and she had become remote from all of that. She recognized it for what it was. Her mother was perfectly right; sometimes she was right, mostly not. She did come around to recognizing that this was the veneer of meaningless fluff. She was as pretty and as clever and as capable as anyone else, she simply lacked that kind of social aggression that seemed to attract the notice of others.

But she did find her niche, among girls who were social outsiders like her, but who devalued the over-rated and utter meaningless of pride in being with the in-crowd. Not the way she did, for the useless façade that it represented, but mostly out of a sense of their own pride. Still, she had to admit to herself there were other girls that were excluded from close acceptance in her own, small group. Others, refused entrée to the luxe cliques and hoping to find acceptance in the lower-tier social groups.

She would have nothing herself to do with the pretensions of these sad girls whose prodigious efforts to ingratiate themselves was so distasteful to her. She was herself. Proudly. She never made an effort to portray herself as anything but what she was, how she felt about things, her perceptions, her values. Take it or leave it, her personality and character was there, up front, visible and clearly defiant of pretension. Those who recognized that and became close to her were her companions, and from and with them she sought solace, though she would never call it that; it was self-affirmation matched by social validation.

And now that she was preparing to enter high school she knew she would be exposed to yet another level of social interaction on an even greater scale offering little gifts of humiliation and occasionally the opportunity to rise above it, continuing to be herself. “You’ll see”, her mother said “it will be different, but don’t get your hopes up, not all that different; just another level.”

Hopes up? She had no hopes. She was cynical, more given to half-full glasses, a term she detested, than viewing life rosily. She was actually, she knew, like her mother. In that sense, if in no other. She would never be like her mother entirely. She would never adapt herself to her mother’s life-style, never.

She had her own aspirations and they didn’t include what she saw of her mother’s life. Dependent on a male partner who never made an effort to consolidate the relationship with an equal effort. None of them, one after the other was worth more than a pile of crap. Losers, every one.

She hardly remembered her father, was left with a dim memory of someone on the sidelines, there but not quite there. Nothing emotional to be recalled about him, as though he’d had nothing emotional invested in her. More than adequately proven by the very fact that though he lived nearby he had never in the decade since their separation, made any effort to contact her Mom, make enquiries about his daughter.

He was so fearful that he might be called upon to contribute to raising her, not by his presence, but by paying child support - which she very well knew was required by law - that he was more than eager to maintain that distance. One her mother had demanded of him. She had promised she would never make an effort to impose child-support payments on him as long as he left them alone. So that was that.

A succession of “Dads” was history. The latest one a quiet guy who tried to be friendly with her, but whom she rebuffed since the day he entered her mother’s life three years earlier. She doubted she would ever become like her mother, so dependent on the company of a man. For companionship, her mother always explained to her. But she couldn’t quite see the ‘companionship’ angle, because it never seemed to work out that way. Seemed to her, the guys were getting a free ride, not investing anything in the relationship, a one-way-street to misery she had no intention of emulating.

But it bugged the hell out of her, having guys around. Her Mom’s guys, to be specific. She felt no attachment to them, no attraction to them, no emotional investment whatever. The one before this guy lasted three years and he was always ordering her around, like he was her father.

So she had no interest in any guy hanging around, because that’s all they ever did. Never made themselves useful, just got in the way. Whenever she wanted to take a shower, he was taking a shower. You’d think she would have priority, but that wasn’t the way it worked. It was her house, her home, not some guy who made nicey-nicey with her Mom for a while and then moved on. Mostly because her Mom got to the stage where she couldn’t stand them any more and invited them to move on. Although the way she carried on when they obliged, you’d think she had lost her one true love.

That’s another thing, she often mused to herself, is there anything like a one true love? Someone like Edward, she giggled to herself. She loved the Twilight books, but even she could recognize them for what they represented, an escape from real life. As though vampires really existed. Made for a good story-line, though. She preferred Jody Picoult, at least there the stories were honestly portrayed, taken from life as it occurred. Thank heavens she has her books, her runaway from life, her escape, her lifeboat.

Boredom still assails her. There’s just so much anyone can do to entertain themselves. She knows she should help her mother, do things around the house. Her mother. Who always speaks of herself as a ‘single mom’. She is that, sure. But she’s still dependent on having a man around. Men who don’t deserve a second thought, another look. What, she wondered, ever attracted her mother to those losers? That they were available, and flattered that a woman like her mother, trim, attractive, smart, a professional, accepted their failings?

She couldn’t quite figure it out, but did figure it to be an easy ride for those guys. Nothing to invest, just hang around and pick the low-growing fruit. She could see this clearly. Why couldn’t her mother? With the first one that she could remember, after her mother’s separation from her father, it was different. She was only four, she was encouraged to call him “Daddy”. And she did, and he did become her daddy. There was someone else who called him Daddy, a boy older than her, but not by much, who came to live with them on the week-ends. Whose mother lived somewhere else, with someone else. And this one she remembered fondly for the seven years he lived with her Mom, and her. He was interested in her, he was good to her, she relied on him. He took her side when her mother went into one of her rages at her 'atrocious' behaviour.

After that, it was downhill all the way. And she resented their presence in her life. Why shouldn’t she? “Be a little more considerate” her mother would tell her, in her better moods, at those times when she wasn’t yelling at her out of sheer frustration, calling her behaviour “atrocious”, telling her she was beyond obstinate. If she was obstinate where did she get it from? From a mother who didn’t know when to give up and who kept trying to find the perfect companion? She would have settled for a lot less than perfect, she would have settled for adequate at the very least, but she could see with her own discerning eye that the entire succession of them were far beyond adequate. On the scale of adequate they were in the dungeon.

But today her mother said she would go out shopping with her. She could look around, “refresh your wardrobe”, as her Mom called it. And it would be only her and her Mom. No hanger-on today. No guy to pull her mother places where she didn’t want to go. Who was more important, anyway to her Mom? Her own kid or some guy who she wasn’t even married to?

They went downtown together. Where a lot of the nicer shops were. To give her a chance to look around. She’d prefer being there with one of her girlfriends, but her Mom didn’t think it was “safe enough” for her to be downtown in the city where they lived, at her age with a friend. Alien abduction? Did her Mom think someone would descend from a hovering spaceship and pluck her out of the crowd?

It was hot, and humid, and looked as though it was going to be a tough slog. When the sun went in and they got a bit of relief then dark clouds loomed on the horizon, gradually nudged the white ones out of the way and threatened to benefit them with a cloudburst.

She felt kind of gloomy, and didn’t want to. Wanted to make the most of this occasion, having her Mom to herself for a change, just the two of them, out shopping for stuff she needed.

And then, walking up to the enclosed mall, sitting on the sidewalk, there was that girl. She couldn’t have been more than a year or two older than herself. Sitting on the sidewalk, her back hunched forward, behind her a brick wall, the side of a building they were passing. It was gritty and more than a little unappealing with all kinds of detritus lying about. And there was the girl, just sitting there. Her hair long and dank, although it looked as though it would be really pretty, washed and clean and shiny. Which it was anything but. Then she lifted her face, and their eyes locked. She knew the girl was looking directly at her, had raised her head as though aware that someone had fixed a stare on her. That face was utterly devoid of expression. Dead hollow, like her glassy eyes with no depth, just a huge vacancy.

She tried to turn away. To pull her eyes away from those of the girl. The girl remained as she was, her head lifted, protruding like a turtle's though her back was still hunched into her body. The girl’s stare at her was unwavering. She wanted to look away, she didn’t want the girl to think she was intruding on her. Intruding on her? In this public place, where she sat, a forlorn figure, a young girl who was obviously homeless. She had seen other people, shambling men who looked like human wrecks, sitting on the pavement and asking for “spare cash”. Few people, she noted, bothered to acknowledge their presence, let alone hand anything to them.

She had seen other young people, guys and girls, but they seemed like they were kind of comfortable being there where they were, hanging around, occasionally approaching a passerby, speaking briefly, then moving off again, re-joining the others. Her mother pulled her along, told her not to stare. She wasn’t a little kid, she didn’t need to be told not to stare at these anomalous figures. She’d seen them before, on other occasions. And took their presence for granted. Part of the background. Like the buskers, the entertainers, the musicians and singers whom people did notice, and for whom there was always an audience who offered coinage in appreciation. Her mother had told her they were university kids, some of them, making some extra money to help further their education. They weren’t down-and-out, her mother stressed, they were enterprising young people.

So who and what was this girl? A stray. A runaway. Homeless, friendless, hopeless, miserable. These thoughts crowded her head and made her feel queasy. She did, finally, look away. Left the girl sitting there, because they were striding onward toward their destination. No longer in sight, she could forget the girl. But she couldn’t.

Her head was crammed with thoughts she had no wish to contemplate. She felt as though her forehead was being compressed toward the back of her head. Why didn’t she say something to the girl? Anything. “Hi” would have done. She was a person. She ignored that girl as though she was worthless, as though she existed only as a freak, sitting on a sidewalk, abandoned and utterly alone.

It seemed to her, much later on reflection, that the girl had not perhaps felt entirely alone. And this thought gave her a truly eerie feeling, as though something was creeping outward from her interior. She remembered, that while she was locked in eye contact with the girl, she had become aware of a sound, deep within her. It was a voice, a voice she had no idea existed. What was it doing there, screaming, screaming endlessly? And then, silence. Just as she felt she was about to panic, the voice was silenced. And it was at that point that she had turned her head away from the girl.

What would she do if she ever had the kind of misfortune that had obviously led to this girl being alone? How could she look after herself? She knew about predators. She knew about the helpless submission of girls to the pestering nuisance of the guys at school. This was a whole lot different. This girl, how could she defend herself? How would she feel, seeing a girl like her, privileged, walking along with her Mom, someone who couldn’t bother even noticing her other than as an object of curiosity, walking away, not a care about anything.

She felt as though the air had become suddenly dark and thick, crowding her lungs, making it difficult for her to breathe properly. She fell back, no longer matching her mother’s pace, in the crowd of people they had entered as they came closer to the entrance of the mall.

“What’s wrong? Keep up!” her mother said. And then she stopped, looked at her daughter and said “You feel okay? Something wrong?”

“I’m okay. Just didn’t feel too good for a bit. I’m coming.”

The Show Goes On

The echinacheas are in full bloom, and so
too are the black-eyed Susans, the tickseed.
The fragrant, colourful splendour of the
gardens have navigated toward high summer.
Each day another presentation, its generosity
never at a loss. The early, lavish display of
roses, clematis and honeysuckle have passed,
rose campion and liatrus, monkshood upon us,
all immodestly guaranteeing us additional displays.
Admirable, in the dogged, dog days of summer.

The elegant floral towers of delphiniums now
overtaken by the perky brightness of phlox.
Now, the white, blowsy heads of hydrangea
fill the garden, and the delicate sprays of
Ladies Mantle, the perfume of flame-coloured
beesbalm, evolve into bloom, replacing
mountain bluet, shasta daisies, poppies and
those gorgeous-hued and -perfumed peonies.

The flowered stalks of bergenia wither, give
audience to the white and blue floral stalks
of varied-leafed hostas, and the pink, white and
red-belled heuchera clamour to be noticed. As
though we might fail to note their inspired
displays of leafage and flowers piquing awe.

White and pink malva, the proud presence of
startling-blue Canterbury bells, the grace of
Stella d'Oro, and day lilies, taking their garden
place from spent irises. The blossoming spirea,
in the wake of lilies-of-the-valley and the lilac,
all take their orderly gracious turn for display,
mindful of their orchestrated place of honour.

Their presence as admired and pleasing to the
bees and butterflies drifting through. The
neighbourhood cardinals who express their
joy in exquisite song; a musical counterpart as
finely crafted by nature as our faultless garden of
earthly delights complementing the energy
and comfort of our lives. Granting ineffable
pleasure to sense and sensibilities in the gardens
of our minds, the spirit of our sensuous eyes.

The Interview

Time he decided finally to retire from his
highly stressful profession finally, at age 75
to enjoy his life now as he will. Leaving
us, his patients the past 40 years to search
out a replacement for the general
practitioner who looked after our
health and that of our children, all
those years past. We remain grateful.

Our children, now older than when he,
as a young medical practitioner first
hung out his shingle, are dispersed, see
other physicians in other cities. As for
us, finally an interview with a prospective
MD, a rarity, someone who may be willing
to take on new patients. Or old ones,
seeking reliable new doctors, perchance.

"Dr. Djanicek I presume", I presumed
to venture as she entered the small chamber
we were ushered into, to await her arrival.
Glossy black hair, lovely young face, tight-
fitting summer frock over a perfect form;
chunky jewellery, no marriage ring. She
smiled, and the health-history interrogation
commenced. Age each? 73, Doctor. How
long married? 55 year, Doctor. Medication?
None. Last physical? Ten years, Doctor.

Family members? grandparents: Holocaust.
Father? arteriosclerosis, dead at 74. Mother?
mortal reaction to experimental in-hospital
drug protocol; fatal asthma attack, 71. Father?
cancer of the oesophagus, age 52. Mother?
two bouts of colon cancer, age 56, 71;
death by frontal lobe dementia, age 84.

Highly professional, rigorously businesslike,
first order to initiate daily calcium supplements
companioning vitamin D we already commit
to. Second order of business, yearly intensive
medicals. Preventive initiative. We accede. She
takes us on. It now remains for us to forward
to her office our exceedingly slender case histories

Bleak Realities

Bleak reality; you're not his passion any longer
though for one brief period in your history
together, you might have consumed his
energy and attention. That accomplished,
he turned another direction. The euphoric
enthusiasm with which he explored every
crevice of your body, its smooth contours
and alluring pheromones, the skin-on-fire
contact has long since been satisfied. He now
notes challenge met, that summit conquered.

He responds now to other challenges that
beckon. His curiosity and physical demands
inspiring him to seek the thrills of adventure
to validate his indomitable male spirit too
long in abeyance, yearning to escape the
dreary bondage of aquiescent existence,
when every sinew and muscle of his body
demands action, adventure, release from
the tame sameness of quotidian habit.

Your comfort is the bane of his existence.
He is a caged tiger, an animal wild to escape
into the male-dominated world of self-aware
validation. Achieved through various gender-
exclusive forays into the wilds of bungee jumping,
parachuting, deep-sea scuba-diving, rock
climbing, spelunking and mountainous ascents
whose enterprise appeals to excess-hormoned
danger-dawdling extreme recreationers.

You, my dear, regretfully abandoned.

The Oven Of This Day

The atmosphere on this mid-summer
day is stiflingly oppressive. Yet a warm
breeze ameliorates the closeness, bringing
some relief from the intolerable heat. A
figment of our overheated imaginations.
Truth is no cooling effect even at night.
This long, heat-exceptional few weeks has
been enervating to the extreme. Even plants
are gasping for relief; annuals curling
in withered dismay, their petals bruised.

The forested canopy in the ravine offers
shelter from the flame-hot sun. The creek
below runs muddy, distressed by area
dogs plunging into its mean depths,
running dry to a bare trickle, despite
last night's rain that barely impacted
the gasping-dry woods. Birdsong is
muted on the heavily-cloistered air.

People exit their air-conditioned homes
and vehicles to wave, pass comment,
exchange exhausted views. One, praising
the cloying humidity and searing heat, his
shirt clinging darkly wet to his overfed chest.
If God listens to his wishes, he chimes, then
he alone is responsible for this glorious
weather he so much enjoys. So go, enjoy.

Heat wave, torpor, languid, desultory, heat-
fatigued: others pass mutual groans of apathetic
weather-disaffection, commiserating with one
another at the brutality of Nature's excesses.
From backyards ring the high-pitched voices
of children being drenched by cooling waters.
No street games for them these days, but
water immersion, and that never to excess.

Granny's Role

There was a little girl and she had quite
the curious curl in the middle of her cupid's
bow lip. That was due her take on life, her
belief her demands be met without a
single moment's hesitation. Lest her vivid
scorn and mighty umbrage be unleashed
upon the unwary so they would rue the
very day they challenged her divine right.

She could screech such decibels of rage
that the air around her shattered,
leaving listeners with half-broken eardrums.
Her mighty fists would flail and bruise,
hitting soft flesh targets, causing victims to
completely loose their cool. Her outrage
and nasty rants gave headaches without
cessation as her rancour and demands
melted resolve and victims simply
surrendered to finally achieve peace.

Her desperate mother found a job,
looked about for paid child help, and
became a cause celebre for a nanny-rescue
line. That discussed options for frantic
mothers but little relief until one granny
said "I'll take the darling child, no mind,
and trash the insubordinate hubris out of
her hide! Bring her over and take yourself
off to saving opportunities that beckon."

I raised you, a miserable misbegotten
child who felt my role on Earth was solely to
do your brutish bidding. I whomped sensibility
into your stubborn head, and I'm prepared to
do likewise with your child. Saving the world
from yet another surrender to the horrors
of an egocentric, entitled drama queen.

The Hot, Still Air

The ravine's waterways hardly reflect those
hard slanting rolling cloudbursts that clapped
throughout a full day; all absorbed. The ground
hungrily took to the partial rescue of its
parched desperation, and the trails capped by
generations of shed pine-needles, gleam
brightly orange. Throughout the ravine
hovers the pervasive heated atmosphere;
not yet gone the cloyingly deep humidity.

Early morning brought the return of summer's
ferocious sun and a wide-saucered serving of
cloud-undisturbed, blue sky. Yet the resistant
curtain of hot, moist air triumphs, with not even
the most trifling movement of air. The formula:
breeze-less damp, sticky, relentless heat.

Tree trunks, still dark with absorbed moisture,
their leaves a glowing emerald treat. A
mourning dove gravely coos. Above the
motionless green canopy, a pair of hawks
circle the sky, whistling, screeching in the
hot, still air. A brilliantly-plumed cardinal trills
ceaselessly as juvenile crows racket about.

Today, You...

You drew your naked torso beside mine,
threw one leg over me, nudged and kissed
me this morning in bed, then we arose, late.
You carefully re-attached my gold loop
earring when it fell off in the shower. You
smoothed skin cream over my back where I
cannot reach. You surreptitiously gave
bacon treats under the table to our little
dogs at breakfast, ignoring my reproaches.

You took out the compost pail after breakfast,
then collected the dogs' morning deposits
to flush down the toilet. You took my favourite
electric broom down to your workshop and
built it a new handle, after the original fell
apart. You told me that was a pee-wee,
singing in the woods, on our daily walk there.

You stood out on the porch for quite a
while, speaking with the hopeful candidate for
City council, and modestly acknowledged
his compliments in recognition of the
faultlessly-installed cobbled floral-bordered
piazza and walkways leading to our front door,
which you worked on using a stonemason's
basic tools of chisel and mallet, then you said
thanks for coming around, he had your vote.

You went back down to your workshop
to continue on your latest stained-glass
window. You took our little dogs out for
some fresh air and pee-time after the
thunderstorms stopped rolling through.
You told me you'd rather I did not inform
people that we are almost 74 years old.

You took the tiny snail I discovered in the
strainer when I was rinsing the basil and
oregano leaves back to the garden where it
belonged. You chopped up all the fresh
vegetables to place on the yeast dough I
rolled out on the pizza pan. You selected a
film video for us to view in the evening.

You are my peerlessly perfect partner.

Nature's Whim

The atmosphere is overheated, overwhelmingly
oppressive. It is so unendurable it feels as though
we are helplessly gulping, swallowing and wallowing
in pure steam. Factually, this is indeed what we are
doing, breathing the over-heated atmosphere;
high humidity under a pure blue bowl of sky
untrammelled by the merest wisp of cloud to
produce an inner-jungle mass of superheated,
moist air, boiling helpless organisms.

One imagines oneself groping helplessly for
relief from the relentless sun in a desert setting
infused with moisture that cloys; air so heavy and
dank it is refused passage through the oesophagus,
and we gasp for oxygen eluding our need, yet
we persevere, for there are no options other.

Wrong, we bless modern technology and a kind
happenstance of fate and reserve our parched
energies held fast within our air-conditioned shelters,
prisoners of deep summer days and unforgiving
nights. Others seek refuge in natural surroundings,
shaded under the cool canopy of trees, hoping the
atmosphere will build toward a sudden onset of
furious cloudbursts, relieving the tension.

Meanwhile, looking with gratitude at the wispiest
of escaped breezes. The landscape is as parched
as we, vibrant greens wilting, stricken by the
sun's heartless rays, flowers closing in protest,
leafy boughs sheltering silenced songbirds. Life
suspended in an abeyance of physical activity, all
energy muted, striving to maintain ourselves
through the utility of pure entropic existence.

Everything seems to be suffocating, shrivelling,
drying up in this intolerably heated atmosphere.
It is as though the sky has been converted to an
oven, and we are within it, sizzling, steam pouring
from our every pore as we begin to disintegrate
into a mass of dry sinew, muscle and clacking
bones, the soft tissue of our skin succumbing to
evaporation assailing us from above and within,
surrounding us entirely, sucking us into nothing.

We, the droop-leaved trees, their canopies
suddenly enervated, hanging with fatigue at mere
existence on these severely baking days, one
following sternly upon the other, no hope of relief.
Gardens are wilting, flowers closing to preserve
their bright insouciance for other, more reasonable
summer days. Birds, formerly bursting their
plumaged chests with prideful song, silent.

Bees there are, but massed on the bark of a tree
just beneath their hive entrance, looking like a
chenille covering, silently waiting to be mortally
overcome, the heat so toxic to their life purpose.
The life cycle of mosquitoes interrupted; when
we plunge early mornings into our wooded ravine
they are miraculously absent, one happily tolerable
result of hell's heat. Butterflies have become
scarce, and moths seek solitude and comfort where
they may, to escape the deadening, fiery air.

When the sky does cloud, the sun still finds its way
through. When clouds become darkly threatening
we wait with breath singed and bated for their
titanic clash and the relief that a massive downpour
will bring. Finally, cloudbursts prevail in full
thunderous regalia, all the pomp and furious sound
of clouds emulating the tectonic force of grinding
continental plates. Electrical fire stabs the hot,
moist air, carrying it across and beyond the sky,
singeing trees, rooftops, and striking terror
into the pounding hearts of nature's creatures.

Rain lashes the landscape as the Earth attempts
to turn itself into a giant, welcoming sponge,
investing its future into the grateful acceptance
of wind-howling, violent offerings. Creeks and
rivers run hastily swollen to lakes and oceans,
washing soil into the wide aqueous bowls of the
seas. Parched crops are smashed, rivers wash
into townscapes, inundate buildings; animals drown
and misery is completely at Nature's whim.

Life Sucks. No, Really...

I.Hate.My.Life.

No, really. I mean it. I really do hate my life. You would too, if you were me, if you were living my life. I know life doesn’t have to be like this, but for me it is. I get really fed up, tired of it all. I know I haven’t lived much of my life yet, but what I’ve seen of it so far hasn’t been much to be happy about. And I don’t know why you think that’s so funny. It isn’t funny to me.

You’re just like my Dad. He laughs at me all the time too. Says I should grow up, learn to be a man and just deal with it. He should talk. He's always yakking about sports, and the FIFA Cup, as if it's the best thing going. Mom can't pry him off the TV. Or he uses that little lap-top, or his cell to get the latest scores, soon as he's home from work.

That's another thing Dad has against me, I think organized sports sucks. I only go because I have to. You can bet I wouldn't, if I had the choice. And Dad thinks my efforts are half-assed, that's why I dislike soccer, that's why I don't do well at it; so he says. Anyway, I don’t see what being a man has to do with this at all. And I’m trying to grow up. It’s just kind of hard. Deal with it? I’d like to see you deal with it.

It must be so cool not to have any brothers or sisters. Kids who don’t have a kid brother or sister don’t know how lucky they are. I kind of imagine sometimes what it must be like. It must be kind of wonderful. My Mom tells me I should be more patient with her. I’m twice her age, she says, as though I don’t know that. I do know, though, that when I was five I wasn’t like her. She’ll change, Mom says, we’ve just got to give it time. Anyway, she tells me, I’m lucky I’ve got a sister. It would be an awfully lonely experience, she says to me, to be an only child. She should know, she says, she was an only child.

I’ve asked the kids at school, the guys I kind of hang out with what it’s like for them, at home, the guys who have brothers and sisters. They just kind of shrug. Bruce says it’s okay, they get along all right. He’s the youngest in his family so I don’t know what that counts for. Eric says his little brother is a pest, but an all-right kid. Mark told me when no one else was around that his brother and sister are really only half-related to him, but they’re okay, he just kind of doesn’t hang around with them, they’re older than him, by a lot. So it looks like no one else I know has anything like my problem.

I know what you’re thinking. You think I’m complaining for no good reason at all. Not. Meredith is an incredibly spoiled brat. Well, it’s not even that. She’s not a spoiled brat in the sense that she gets everything she wants, and gets to think she can have anything she wants. She’s just a nasty kid, that’s what she is. I overheard a neighbour say that about her, actually. I felt kind of offended too, to hear someone talk about my sister like that, but then I realized that’s just what she is. She’s selfish and miserable, she doesn’t care about anything or anyone else than what she wants and she wants it right away. And if she doesn’t get what she wants she screams. These awful high-pitched screeches. They’d give a saint a headache, my grandma once said.

If I ever make any kind of sarcastic comment about Melanie, my parents jump all over me. They accuse me of hating my sister. I don’t hate her, I just don’t like her. You can’t hate a relative, they’re your relative. But you don’t have to like them, and I don’t like Melanie. Everyone loses their cool around her. No one knows what to do about her. I’ve seen my grandma plunk herself down on a chair and just cry her head off. I’d never seen my grandma do anything like that before, her shoulders all hunched up, her head down and in her hands, heaving these great big horrible sighs. I didn’t know what to do. I stood beside her, tapped her on the shoulder, then put my arm around her and hugged her. She’s kind of too big and round to hug, but I tried. After awhile she put her head up and looked at me. She looked awful.

“It’s all right, Stevie, I’m all right. I don’t know what got into me. I’m all right now. You’re a dear”, she said, pulling me around in front of her and hugging me. No problem her hugging me. I could hardly breathe. There isn’t as much of me as there is of her.

“Don’t tell Mother”, she said to me. “Don’t bother mentioning it. I don’t want your mother worried about me, asking me questions. I’m just fine.”

“Sure, Grandma”, I said. But I knew what was wrong with her. Melanie was what was wrong with Grandma. That was last summer, once school was out and Mom wanted to keep her job, and asked Grandma if she would sit us. Not ‘us’, so much as Melanie, because even though I’m twice her age, Mom and Dad don’t think I’m old enough to supervise her. That’s something to be grateful for.

So when Mom asked Grandma close to the end of the school year this time around if she might consider looking after us while she worked, Grandma said she wasn’t sure. Then she said, maybe two days a week. She needed some summer-time to herself, she said, with that kind of apologetic sound in her voice that people use when they’re uncomfortable about something.

“Sure”, Mom said. “I understand. I’ll look for someone to come around, someone in the community, maybe some high school girl, who wouldn’t mind sitting for the other two days of the week.” Grandma nodded, said that would work out just fine.

Mom works four days a week, Monday to Thursday. She’s home on Fridays, and then there’s the week-end.

Mom says she’s got to get out of the house. Actually, before Mom started her job she used to argue a whole lot with Dad, and that’s kind of stopped, now. They’d discuss Melanie, see, and that would escalate, as they say, into a shouting match. They’d try to tamp it down when we were around. Hard to do in a house where we’re all together. Sometimes when we’re supposed to be outside, playing or whatever, they don’t keep track and when I come in I can hear them. Mom says she’s frustrated, doesn’t know what to do, how to handle Melanie. I know just what she means. I could give her a few hints. I’m not supposed to do anything to Melanie, like slap her or anything, even though she’s always slamming away at me. But Mom could do it, turn that kid over and whack her backside, as the saying goes.

She won’t, though. She tells me I’m never to do anything in retaliation for what Melanie does to me. She says it’s normal for a little girl to be like that, ready to pop off her cork at any time when she insists she wants something and she can’t have it. I’ve never seen Mom do that, she just shrugs her shoulder and gets on with things. Dad and Mom never argue about anything like one wants something the other doesn’t or anything like that. It’s only about Melanie, far as I can see.

Hey, I’ve even heard Grandma tell Mom she should use physical discipline if nothing else works. And believe me, nothing else works. Whenever anyone tries to talk to Melanie, tell her she’s not behaving, and she’s old enough to know better, her face gets all scrunched up and hard and her eyes get into these little nasty slits and her mouth turns down at the corners and she looks like a crazy bat, honestly. That’s some kid sister.

Well, I’m like Mom that way anyway, I don’t go around thinking it’s okay to hit anyone. I just wouldn’t do it. And that’s something, matter of fact, that Melanie is always doing. Always smashing things around, banging things, and hitting. When she’s mad, and that’s half the time, she just begins smacking everyone. Even Dad’s been whacked by her. For a little kid, her fist can really hurt. But she doesn’t only rely on slapping and fisting, she throws things. If she’s mad enough, and you never know - she’ll pick up anything that isn’t too heavy for her to lift and toss it. At me, or whoever happens to be around, ‘bothering’ her. She doesn’t let being ‘bothered’. I’ve tried to explain to her that she bothers me constantly, like all the time. She thinks I’m dumb. She calls me dumb ass. Mom lectures her about that too, but it doesn’t help. Nothing seems to.

So here I am, stuck with a kid sister who just happens to be a menace. It all seems so hopeless, sometimes. Grandma tells me, quietly, so no one else can hear, to ignore her.

“Just pay her no mind”, Grandma says.
“I’d like to” I tell her. “But it doesn’t work. If I step around her and pretend she isn’t there, then that gets her mad too. And she gets right in my face about it.”
“Take it from me, darlin’”, Grandma insists, “if you ignore her baby tantrums she’ll find she has no audience and she’ll cool off.”

Like that would help, like that would work. Listen, I’ve tried everything. Nothing works.

I knew Mom was looking for someone who lives in the area to come in to just kind of be around, while she was at work. Not that I need anyone looking after me, but Melanie sure does. And I’m not about to offer myself as her personal punching bag, someone else can have the pleasure of telling that brat what she can and shouldn’t be doing, and watch her reaction as she goes into one of her berserk moods. I’ll be around, but I won’t be doing anything to look after that kid.

Anyway, I heard Mom on the telephone speaking with someone, asking if she would ask her daughter if she would be interested in coming over to our place two days a week. There was a lot of stuff back and forth, and when I asked Mom later, she said she wasn’t certain, but she thought she had someone who could spell Grandma who would take the other two days of the week.

A week later, just before the end of school, I found out who our - or Melanie’s - sitter was going to be. I just couldn’t believe it. I kind of yelled, YES!

That was embarrassing, I couldn’t believe I did that. We were sitting at the table after dinner when that happened. Dad looked at me, Mom looked at me, little brat-sister looked at me, and I felt like screwing myself deep into the chair I was sitting on, becoming invisible. How would I explain that to them? I mumbled about how I just remembered something about Mikey, that he had told me his mother was going to pick me up for the game practise later in the week and I’d forgotten to say anything about it.

Dad and Mom kept looking at me. Guess they wanted to hear more. I didn’t say anything else. What could I say? Tell them that our neighbour two houses down the way who is going to be coming over to sit Melanie is someone I really, really, really like? I get all funny even looking at her. Funny feeling, not funny ha-ha, you know? We take the same school bus, she gets off just before we do. She’s really good-looking and a whole lot even nicer than she looks, if that’s possible. She’s not snotty like most of the other older girls, the girls in grade 8. She’s friendly, always says hi!

And this is the last year I’ll be seeing her on the school bus, because she’s graduating, and going to high school next school year. I’ve felt really miserable about that. I know I’ll just never get to see her. But that was before I learned she’d be coming over here two days a week. I can’t believe it! I better be careful too, about how I am, around her. I don’t want anyone to get any ideas about that. If my bratty kid sister ever heard anything about it, that I’m stuck on Dakota she’d scream it all over the place and make everyone laugh at me. That would absolutely kill me, absolutely.

And then, a couple days later, Grandma told Mom that she changed her mind. I got really quiet when I heard her say that. I felt Grandma was going to say she would come over four days, not two, and Dakota wouldn’t be needed, to be coming over. But it wasn’t that at all. Grandma said she changed her mind, she decided she just couldn’t manage to come over here two days a week, even though her house is only a ten-minute drive from ours. Mom looked really upset, so did Grandma. Grandma said she was sorry, she just couldn’t stand the thought of having to … discipline Melanie continually.

So then Mom called over to Dakota’s mother again, asked if she thought Dakota would be all right with coming over four days a week, not two, and how much did her mother think my mother should pay her? She was thinking, she said, between $40 and $60 a day. Wow, I thought that was a lot of money. Seems Dakota’s mother thought that way too, and said she thought $40 sounded reasonable. She’d be coming over here at 8:30, just when Mom would be leaving, and Mom would be back from work around half-past three.

Dakota is fourteen. How do I know? Because a few weeks back one of the older girls shouted out to her on the bus, happy birthday, and what did she think about being fourteen? Dakota laughed, shrugged, said thanks. Said she feels the same old her. That’s only four years older than me. And I’m going to be eleven in another month. So she’s not even four years older than me, that’s nothing. Lots of people… Well, I’ll catch up, you’ll see. I know that guys take longer than girls to get going, growing up, but by the time I’m her age, I’ll be as big as her, probably bigger, and then maybe she’d look at me kind of differently.

The first day Dakota stayed with us while Mom was away working was really neat. Melanie was her usual bratty self, and threw something really hard at Dakota. It hit her on the leg, and she was really calm about it, although I knew it must’ve hurt. A couple days later I saw she had a bruise out of it, so it must’ve hurt. What she did was she talked to Melanie, as if that would make any difference. She was trying to reason with her, and you can’t reason with someone as self-centred and unreasonable as my bratty sister. I thought that was really nice of her, instead of hauling off and smacking the kid, like she deserved.

What was really neat about that first day was that Dakota treated me like I was her friend, and that I was there along with her, looking after Melanie. I liked that a lot. We played games in the backyard; we’ve got a basketball hoop set up there, and a badminton court kind of, and stuff like that. She’s a good sport, and she didn’t care who won, and I’m not sure but she may have let me win one time, although if that’s true I’d feel bad about it, because I want to win because I’m good at something not because someone wants me to feel good about something. All the other times, no matter what we were playing, the games were ‘won’ by Melanie.

And Dakota baked chocolate chip cookies. I’ve always loved helping Mom bake cookies, that’s the one thing brat-sister and me agree on, helping with the baking, and Mom lets us have some of the cookie dough before it’s baked. So did Dakota. Actually Dakota ate lots of the cookie dough too. We did a lot of laughing and it was really tons of fun. Would’ve been a whole lot better if brat-kid wasn’t around.

And then, on Thursday, the absolute worst happened. Just a whole lot of absolute crap that I couldn’t do anything to help avoid, even though I tried, and Dakota knows I tried. I wanted to impress her, make her believe that I was more than a little kid … a little kid a bit older than the brat-sister she was baby-sitting. But then I lost it. And I don’t know what I can do to turn things back to where they were before it all happened.

Before Thursday Dakota and me together looked after Melanie. We worked together on this project, know what I mean? I felt that Dakota respected me as if I was someone her own age, someone she got along with really well, and we had a kind of understanding, like as if I was her age and stuff like that. It’s hard to explain. She just made me feel good about everything. Made me feel as though she relied on me to help her. Like it was me and her and then there was Melanie. I know it doesn’t sound like much, sounds like I’m making things up or something, but honestly, I’m not. Now, I don’t know what’s going to happen. Is she going to think about me like I’m another little kid, like she’s looking after me, along with Melanie?

On Thursday the weather was awful. Non-stop, heavy rain, so we couldn’t get out much at all really, couldn’t use the trampoline, couldn’t use the badminton nets and run into the sprinkler, that kind of stuff. Melanie started out the day whining and complaining and being really miserable, heaving things around, demanding - actually just being her usual self - plus.

She kept eating freezies. And Dakota told her she’d had enough, no more until lunch. If she was hungry, Dakota said, have an apple. Then Melanie said Dakota had to make her lunch and then she could have more freezies. Dakota said it was only half-past ten, too early for lunch, have an apple. No! screamed Melanie - I WANT FREEZIES!

“Too bad” Dakota said. “You’re getting to the age where you have to start learning that you can’t have everything you want whenever you want it.”

See, that’s what Dakota is like. She thinks she can reasonably explain things to Melanie. She said to me once that she was a brat when she was young, and she knows what it’s like, and she also knows what it’s like to be refused things you want, and she thinks that if things are explained reasonably, kids will understand and be what she says is more compliant.

Melanie began throwing stuff all over the place, and Dakota told her calmly, to stop, that doing that kind of stuff won’t make any difference, she still won’t get what she wants, and will only work herself up into a frenzy. That only made Melanie worse, and she began screaming in that awful high-pitched sound that makes my ears hurt so I have to stick my fingers in them.

Dakota sat Melanie down, despite Melanie kicking her, and held her and tried to explain that Mom said Melanie wasn’t supposed to eat a lot of junk.

“Melanie, you want to grow up into a healthy girl, so you need healthy food. Those freezies are only junk food and if you keep having them you won’t have any appetite left for good, nutritious food. That’s what this is all about”, Dakota said quietly to her. And the minute she let Melanie go, the screeching started all over again.

And next thing you know, there’s Melanie with three more freezies in her hand, defying Dakota to get them off her. This time Dakota began to yell at Melanie and that ended in Melanie giving up two of the freezies and eating one of them, but still crying and screaming that she wanted more.

After lunch we went downstairs to play some hockey. There was me against Dakota and Melanie and it started out all right, but Melanie got bored and began bashing everything with her hockey stick. Dakota told Melanie to stop doing that before she broke something and then felt sorry about it, or even worse, hit someone with the stick and then she’d be sorry. Of course, Melanie just ignored her, so Dakota took away all the sticks, including mine but I couldn’t play against myself anyway.

Dakota asked if Melanie wanted to hear a story. She would read to us, and that would be fine, because we both like that. But Melanie wouldn’t agree to have a story read, and just glared at both of us. I told her she was a horrible brat and I was ashamed she was my sister. Next thing I knew, something hit me hard, on the side of my head and it felt like it was crushed.

I heard Dakota yell at Melanie that now she’d done it. I sat down on the floor, and began crying. I didn’t mean to do that. I don’t know why I let myself do that. It’s like I couldn’t help it, it hurt so bad. Next thing I know, Dakota is kneeling down beside me, asking me if I’m all right, and I’m blubbering. I tried to stop, but I just couldn’t, it really hurt. She pulled my hands away from my head to have a look, I guess, said it didn’t look bad, but I’d probably get a good bruise out of it, and picked up the croquet ball Melanie had lobbed at me.

I stuck my head back in my hands and began kind of swearing, mushing the words to kind of make it sound as if that’s what I was doing all along, just swearing, not blubbering all that time. And then I realized that it wasn’t fooling Dakota any, she could see all the slob and snot all over my hands and my nose and chin from my crying just like a girl, like a kid. And how could she respect me any more after this?

I hate my kid sister, I really do. You have no idea how much I hate her.

You have no idea how humiliated I am, how much I hate my life. It’s over.

I have nothing left to live for.