Everybody feels sorry for me because I have no parents. The other children in my class make sure to choose me first to their team when we play football – even though I never hit the ball. When we queue for the swings, they all tell me to go ahead. The other children get punished for not doing their homework, but I just receive a tired sigh from Mrs Eglington. It doesn’t matter. I know more than them anyway.
*
I live with Ranja; she is divorced but still very attractive. I like her. She tells me stories about little princes, lost kingdoms and dragons in the evening. I think she once had a child, a boy like me, but he is gone now. I think he left because he was allergic to the antique furniture in Ranja’s house.
*
-Areth, let’s build sandcastles together, let’s build up a whole empire that we can rule over until the end of times!
-Until the end?
-Come on, our empire will be the most powerful one you’ve ever seen! Our sandcastle will be the best one ever built!
-What is best?
-Together we can make it big. Let’s make it one whole metre in diameter!
-Big?
-Yeah, like huge. We can continue working on it tomorrow, and make it even better!
-How is tomorrow?
*
I like to draw. When I am not in school, or helping Ranja with the household chores, I draw meetings between tiny figures. They are smaller than the children at school, but more intelligent. They live in the valley of Aegon, where trees are simply trees and not short or tall; where not all flowers have a name; and where today is now but so is tomorrow. Once, Ranja found me staring at one of my drawings. It had small stains of water on it, as if the ceiling in my room had been leaking.
-What have you drawn, little Areth? She asked with that sweet but oblivious voice of hers.
-It’s my family. My home. Suddenly ashamed of showing her my tears, I turned away, grabbing the drawing with me. I crumpled it into a small globe, pressing it together as much as I could, and threw it out of the window. Maybe the neighbour’s cat would find it and eat it.
*
My best friends in school are Ellinor and Imran. They tell everyone they are cousins, but I don’t believe they are related – though one day I think they will be. Our plays are more intelligent than the other children’s, because we play with our minds. We stand in a circle, holding each other’s hands with our eyes closed. Without speaking, I tell them to catch me if they can. Ellinor is always the first one to seize me. She presses my hand firmly, waiting for Imran to also receive the message.
One day when we’re playing our telepathic game, Ellinor does not answer my call. Her hand remains slack like a puppet without its master, and I feel my lungs sinking into my chest. The air is almost out, but I continue holding my breath. The sky is spinning above my head and I see the inhabitants of Aegon gathering around my little blue body. A thin woman with a pencil behind her ear is bent over me, making chirping sounds with her throat.
-My little naughty Areth, my little, tiny precious one…
*
When I open my eyes again, I find my sighing teacher kneeling next to me. She is wearing a brown hat which looks like a squirrel, and I hide my nose within my palm, so as not to have it mistaken for a nut.
-Little boys need to breath, she tells me mechanically. Otherwise they will die. I know that Ellinor and Imran are gone, and that they will not come back. “You were always the third, you were always the third, you were always the third wheel…” Their singing penetrates my brain, and I start squirming with pain. I want them to stop, but they only sing louder. I see them running hand in hand; with the same blond hair being brushed by the wind. I know now that they will become one family.
-How is third? I ask Mrs Eglington.
*
Another day, Ranja took me to the zoo to see the lions, the tigers and the ostriches. In one of her magazines, I had seen a lion feasting on a deer that had broken its leg, so I knew what they looked like. Tigers were similar, so I accepted them; but ostriches were untraceable. Ranja told me ostriches have wings, and they stick their head into the ground when they get scared. I saw in front of me a bird being chased by a lion, and suddenly stopping to cover its head in the mud. To me, ostriches did not sound like very intelligent animals.
Ranja is normally good at holding my hand and keeping track of me, but I think she was missing her little boy so much that day that she forgot to look after me. After seeing the tigers, I got bored and drifted away from my caretaker. She was busy helping a less educated girl feed little bunnies with grass. I thought about feeding the bunnies to either the lions or the tigers, and wondered whether this sight would make the ostriches hide their heads in the ground.
*
They must have been looking for me ever since the sunlight disappeared – I had heard Ranja’s normally calm voice turn high pitch and shaky. There were unknown men’s voices, too. But I was telling a new group of friends about the valley of Aegon, “where you work when you can, and sleep when you can’t”, and they embraced me in their circle of safety. No one asked when or how or why; they simply just listened. Or else they ate – if they were hungry. Or else they picked little dots from each other’s heads. It made me think of a TV programme entitled “The Next Evolution”, which Mrs Edlington had showed the whole class once. At that moment, I knew Aegon was within reach; that the time to measure would end soon, and that I then would get to experience its smell of sand, water and trees; all mixed together in a heavenly bliss.
Monica Westerén, 12.5.2008
My best friends in school are Ellinor and Imran. They tell everyone they are cousins, but I don’t believe they are related – though one day I think they will be. Our plays are more intelligent than the other children’s, because we play with our minds. We stand in a circle, holding each other’s hands with our eyes closed. Without speaking, I tell them to catch me if they can. Ellinor is always the first one to seize me. She presses my hand firmly, waiting for Imran to also receive the message.
One day when we’re playing our telepathic game, Ellinor does not answer my call. Her hand remains slack like a puppet without its master, and I feel my lungs sinking into my chest. The air is almost out, but I continue holding my breath. The sky is spinning above my head and I see the inhabitants of Aegon gathering around my little blue body. A thin woman with a pencil behind her ear is bent over me, making chirping sounds with her throat.
-My little naughty Areth, my little, tiny precious one…
*
When I open my eyes again, I find my sighing teacher kneeling next to me. She is wearing a brown hat which looks like a squirrel, and I hide my nose within my palm, so as not to have it mistaken for a nut.
-Little boys need to breath, she tells me mechanically. Otherwise they will die. I know that Ellinor and Imran are gone, and that they will not come back. “You were always the third, you were always the third, you were always the third wheel…” Their singing penetrates my brain, and I start squirming with pain. I want them to stop, but they only sing louder. I see them running hand in hand; with the same blond hair being brushed by the wind. I know now that they will become one family.
-How is third? I ask Mrs Eglington.
*
Another day, Ranja took me to the zoo to see the lions, the tigers and the ostriches. In one of her magazines, I had seen a lion feasting on a deer that had broken its leg, so I knew what they looked like. Tigers were similar, so I accepted them; but ostriches were untraceable. Ranja told me ostriches have wings, and they stick their head into the ground when they get scared. I saw in front of me a bird being chased by a lion, and suddenly stopping to cover its head in the mud. To me, ostriches did not sound like very intelligent animals.
Ranja is normally good at holding my hand and keeping track of me, but I think she was missing her little boy so much that day that she forgot to look after me. After seeing the tigers, I got bored and drifted away from my caretaker. She was busy helping a less educated girl feed little bunnies with grass. I thought about feeding the bunnies to either the lions or the tigers, and wondered whether this sight would make the ostriches hide their heads in the ground.
*
They must have been looking for me ever since the sunlight disappeared – I had heard Ranja’s normally calm voice turn high pitch and shaky. There were unknown men’s voices, too. But I was telling a new group of friends about the valley of Aegon, “where you work when you can, and sleep when you can’t”, and they embraced me in their circle of safety. No one asked when or how or why; they simply just listened. Or else they ate – if they were hungry. Or else they picked little dots from each other’s heads. It made me think of a TV programme entitled “The Next Evolution”, which Mrs Edlington had showed the whole class once. At that moment, I knew Aegon was within reach; that the time to measure would end soon, and that I then would get to experience its smell of sand, water and trees; all mixed together in a heavenly bliss.
Monica Westerén, 12.5.2008
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