October Flash Fiction #4 - Watch Your Step

“As she said these words her foot slipped, and in another moment, splash! she was up to her chin in salt water.”  Alice in Wonderland, Chapter 2

“Also, in the middle, cadaverous, awful, lay the grey puddle in the courtyard, when holding an envelope in my hand, I carried a message. I came to the puddle. I could not cross it. Identity failed me. We are nothing, I said, and fell. I was blown like a feather. I was wafted down tunnels. Then very gingerly, I pushed my foot across. I laid my hand against a brick wall. I returned very painfully, drawing myself back into my body over the grey, cadaverous space of the puddle. This is life then to which I am committed.”  The Waves, Virginia Woolf

“How did you get so filthy?” Rina asked crossly.

Louisa flinched and burst into tears, which made her dirty face muddy and snotty as well.  Rina sighed and said, “It’s okay, Lou.  We can clean you up.  I’m not mad, really.”

Louisa wiped her eyes and nose on the tail of her t-shirt as Rina closed her magazine and shoved it in her bag.  “It was the puddle,” Louisa said.

“And I suppose the puddle jumped on you all by itself?” Rina replied.

“The big boys helped,” Louisa said.

“What big boys?” Rina asked, looking around.

“They’re gone now.  But they pushed me.”

“Why didn’t you call for me?”

“I was scared.  And I knew you’d be mad that I was dirty.”

“I’m not mad at you,” Rina said, automatically.  She had to tell Louisa that about a zillion times a day when her natural impatience collided with the child’s automatic assumption of her own guilt.  “I am mad that big boys were mean to you.”

Louisa’s eyes rounded with surprise.  Rina reached out to hug her, but she flinched away again.  Right.  That didn’t work.  This was not going to be an easy adjustment for either of them.

When Louisa was in the bath, Rina listened from the other side of the door.  The child didn’t like to undress.  Rina had to promise not to open the door except in a dire emergency, but she listened to make sure that Louisa was actually scrubbing and washing out her hair.

Rina bribed her with hot chocolate and a movie so that she would sit still and let her comb out the tangles after Louisa was dry and pajama-clad.  Louisa eventually relaxed enough to sing softly along with the video, “A very merry unbirthday to me…”