February 2021 Flash Lit 9 - On a Dark Desert Highway

Alice opened the door and found that it led into a small passage, not much larger than a rat-hole: she knelt down and looked along the passage into the loveliest garden you ever saw. How she longed to get out of that dark hall, and wander about among those beds of bright flowers and those cool fountains, but she could not even get her head through the doorway; “and even if my head would go through,” thought poor Alice, “it would be of very little use without my shoulders…”  Alice in Wonderland, Chapter 1

 

 

 

 

In 1976, Bonnie turned 8.  She got braces on her too-large front teeth.  Her mother made her put barrettes in her hair for school to keep it out of her face, but they always gave her a headache, pulling so tightly on the roots.  She would have taken them out if she thought she could get away with it.

 

Then Grandma Brown came to visit.  She was her dad’s mother and everyone said that Bonnie took after her.  Bonnie looked at the wisps of hair escaping from Grandma Brown’s bun and had to agree.  She wouldn’t mind having an arm full of silver bangles that jingled or big hoop earrings, either, but her mother wouldn’t hear of her getting her ears pierced.

 

Grandma Brown drove up in her VW Beetle, George.  “George is the handsomest,” Grandma said. “I’d love to go for a drive with him.”  Mother’s smile froze on her face, but Bonnie laughed.

 

“Where would you go?” she asked.

 

Grandma Brown spread her arms out wide so her green crinkly caftan looked like an embroidered kite.  “Oh, maybe to see the redwoods, or to the desert for a vision quest.”

 

“What’s a vision quest?” Bonnie asked, hoping it was more about swords and less about glasses.

 

“Nonsense,” her mother said.  “Just self-indulgent nonsense and no indoor plumbing.”

 

Grandma Brown winked a tell-you-later at Bonnie.  “How about some presents?” she said.  “Help me carry this stuff in.”

 

Bonnie took the pale blue suitcase in one hand and the matching make-up kit in the other.  Mother accepted a tote bag bulging with crochet yarn.  Grandma Brown brought up the rear with her fringed leather purse and some paper bags.

 

“You help Grandma settle in,” Bonnie’s mother said.  “I need to get dinner started before your father gets home.”

 

Perched on the squat green chair in the guest room, Bonnie watched as Grandma Brown kicked off her sandals.  “Ahh!  I hate shoes,” she said.  “I like to feel the earth.”

 

“Mom doesn’t let earth get on the carpet,” Bonnie said.

 

“Figuratively,” Grandma Brown said.  “Now, where did I put those presents?”  She riffled through an untidy pile of bright cottons in the suitcase and emerged with a string of amber beads and a kaleidoscope.

 

Bonnie thought the beads looked like frozen sunshine and said so.  “More or less,” her grandma agreed.  “Petrified tree sap, which the trees made from the sun.  Amber clears the mind.”  She put away a few more things as Bonnie looked through the kaleidoscope at a shifting rainbow landscape.

 

“Kaleidoscope is the collective noun for a group of butterflies,” Grandma Brown said.  “And who doesn’t need more butterflies?”