I will tell you a story.
Before I do, let me tell you why because the why is always important. I would like to tell you why we tell stories, and why stories are often so engaging that we can’t help but listen. But actually, I can only tell you why I tell stories and why I listen to stories, and you will have to decide why you do…and that answers both questions right there.
So then.
Once upon a time, not so long ago or far away, a baby girl was born with eyes wide open, taking in the world she was emerging into before she had fully left her mother’s body. Her world consisted mainly of adults: her parents and their friends, few of whom had children yet, but who universally adored her. Like a being of pure light she captivated every room she entered, and she absorbed everything she saw. Language became her power as soon as she could form words. Everything she noticed became a story she could tell, and every story turned the faces of those around her like flowers to the sun. She was more confident in her own power before she was three years old than she has ever been since.
Then everything changed.
Now is where I should be explaining what changed, how the change occurred, and in what way the girl was affected. You want to know these things, right? Because the girl sounds like a lovely child, and people are drawn to lovely things. Perhaps she reminds you of someone you know, or sounds like someone you would like to know. Perhaps you simply want to put yourself into her story for a bit longer, because to be fully cognizant and in command of our own power is a wondrous thing, a state of being we all long for. And no, it’s not truly possible for so young a child to have attained all that, but stories are magic, meant to be told however the teller wishes; and so, for my purpose, imagine that she is. Imagine she has everything a human child could wish for. And then, imagine it all being taken away.
This is, also, not to be taken literally. True, none of her parents’ friends would still be in her life by the time she was seven, and neither would any of the child friends she had begun to make. She still had her parents, and then a baby brother, but the brother would forever after be the one adored. She had a home, and then another home, and then another home much farther away and unfamiliar, and then several more after that; but still she always had a home. She had a cat, and the cat came with them. She had toys and books and familiar things. She was fortunate in so many ways, but selfish in the way that humans so often are because of the taken away. That part mattered more than anything else. She had good things, and then she didn’t have those things, and it was someone’s fault. A Good Thing became something to be suspicious of. It was a source of potential pain.
Children are smarter than we think, they learn these lessons earlier than adults ever imagine; which is odd because they are us. Every childhood is different, yes, but childhood itself is universal. Not every child will become an adult, but every adult was once a child; our bodies remember even if our minds refuse to accept the indignity of such helpless dependence. And this particular child remembered everything she had ever felt, and stored it as essential information. Life might be too big a mystery to solve, but people weren’t; and she was the person she knew best. She was a mystery she was determined to puzzle out. She was too young to know that she would die trying.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to CrossWitch to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.