Eight Years Old
The sunlight fills the sky the way it only does in summer
when it reaches its height.
A little girl sits on an old blanket in a secluded corner of the garden.
Beyond the fence behind her, the hen house,
perhaps filled with chickens.
Or maybe the fox already ate them.
She wasn’t keen on chickens,
since one pecked her when she was six.
To her left the fir tree not yet tall enough to climb;
fun that would belong to the next generation.
Rooted in the grass the apple trees holding up the washing lines,
sheets swaying gently in the slight breeze, drying in the warmth of the sun
which also rested gently on the girl’s back.
Between the fir tree and the oldest of the apple trees,
the wooden swing built by her dad.
She hadn’t fallen off it yet, crawling into the house to lie motionless
until the numbness in the base of her spine released its grip.
Across the lawn where the daffodils bloomed in spring,
the vegetable plot and the house, painted light apricot,
kitchen door always open to welcome people in.
Fields that fall away from the house cannot be seen from where she sits,
a permitted reprieve from childhood chores.
On the blanket her dolls play out their roles:
princesses, adventurers, heroines in places she can only imagine.
That’s where they can be whatever she wants them to be.
Being whatever she wants to be.
The decades pass: exams, university, secure careers.
And then…
A chance encounter with an article in a magazine, the author sadly unremembered.
What did you want to be when you were eight years old? it asked.
The little girl awoke.
I want to write stories, she answered.