Emilit

I thought about childhood as a period to survive. I thought that life will start when I grow up and I will be surrounded by friendly adults who will discuss food prices in calm, comforting voice, while drinking cold lemonade on a shaded terrace. I decided that once I will grow up I will never again speak to any child and that if a child will come to me on the street to ask what the time is, I will turn my back on her, and start whistling.
When I was six I was forced to go to school. Until that time I was all right with life and life was all right with me. Even my mother was all right with me at those early years, if I remember well. I never had a father. Normal little girls had fathers, sitting in the armchair of the living room and watching football.
At school I was forced to sit in one place for forty minutes, quietly, motionless. I felt an intolerable tension, as if my body was preparing to explode. I saw myself blowing up, covering the faces of my classmates with a million little particles of Emily. That is my name: Emily. I always felt disconnected from my name. It might have been accidentally exchanged in the newborn department, I thought. There was nothing Emilyish in me. Emily is a blond girl, pale skinned and blue eyed, playing with dolls and wearing a white skirt with yellow flowers. I had dark hair, dark skin and dark eyes, like a goblin. Goblins can be called Gorlak or Singra, possibly Ashanti, but not Emily. I suspected a fatal mistake had happened somehow in the newborn department. What if I was really the child of a happy and loud family with countless brothers and sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles? What if my mother had been to the hospital because of a serious flu, and by accident she was sent home with a baby? She might have been too polite to uncover the misunderstanding, as she never liked to reject authorities, such as greengrocers or a nurse. That's what I was in her life: a fatal error.
In the mornings when I stared out of the school bus window, a goblin was looking back at me from outside, with big, dark goblin eyes.
" Hello goblin". I said every morning.
"Hello goblin". The goblin said every morning.
During the breaks at school I was exposed to the endless ignorance of my classmates. They would stand in the courtyard, girls in white skirts in a circle, chatting and laughing. Once in a while I collected all my courage, and approached them. Words can’t kill, but silence can. They stopped speaking, demonstrating how unwanted my company was. That was their game, the only game they played with me: the shut up game. I was standing there, puzzled. I wanted to say something but didn’t find anything to say. So I was just staring at them. That was the only game I could offer to play with them: the staring game. Who can bear it longer without Blinking (?) ? I always won. So they blinked and I went back to the classroom, and sat there until the end of the break.
One afternoon, after an unbearably quiet day, I went home and switched on the television, to fill my head with noises. I chose a football game: television can scare the hell out of you if you are alone at home and it’s getting dark outside, but there is nothing less scary than a football game. Suddenly I found my father sitting in the armchair, watching the game. He had white hair and long white beard; he was a mixture of Santa Claus, Gandalf and God. I leaned my back against his calves, and watched the television with him. I didn’t say a word; I didn’t want to break the harmony of the moment.
"Why do you sit on the floor?" – My mother asked me when she arrived home. – "And why do you watch football? Normal little girls play with dolls, and never watch football".
I didn’t like to play with my dolls, because my dolls were blind and deaf. I could do or say anything to them, but they remained silent. I combed their hair and I dressed them, but they didn’t say a word and I didn’t feel satisfaction. I cut their hair short as if they were soldiers, and gave them orders to kill the enemy, but they didn’t move or say a word, and I didn’t feel satisfaction. I bit their nose, wrung their arms, pushed them under the water, but they didn’t say a word. I hid their abused bodies in the laundry, but my mother found them. I knew that I deserved to be punished, but my mother didn’t say a word, just placed them back on the shelf of my room. My dolls were staring at me accusingly, noseless, with arms untwisted, and I didn’t dare to fall asleep.
On the weekends I tried to play with my mother, but she was always busy with working, cooking, cleaning.
" Do you want me to help, mum?" I asked her.
"Go to play, Emily". She said.
"I don’t know how to play". I said.
" Every little girl knows how to play". She said.
I didn’t know though. No one ever taught me. I was sitting in my room, staring at my dolls. They stared back at me. That was what we were playing: the staring game. Who can do it longer without blinking? They always won.
My happiest day at school was when the new girl came. She was standing alone in the courtyard during the long break, and I collected all my courage to approach her. I didn’t know what to say to her, but I felt comforted already not being alone.
She smiled at me and said that her name was Joan but I can call her Joe. I laughed, and said to her that my name is Emily but she can call me Richard. She didn’t find my joke funny, but she tolerated my company all break long, and I felt full with gratitude. By the end of the day I asked her if she wants to be my best friend. She said she will think about it. I told her that I never had a best friend before, and she could come over after school one day to play with my dolls.
I was so excited to have a best friend that I got high fever on that evening and my mother didn’t let me to go to school, despite my tears and craving. I was forced to stay at home for one week. Next Monday I found my best friend in the circle of the white skirts and yellow flowers. I didn’t dare to approach her there; I had to wait for a moment when she was alone.
Finally she left the circle and entered the school building. I followed her, and found her in the bathroom, washing a spot out of her white skirt. I didn’t know what to say to her.
" Why are you staring at me? " She asked.
"I’m not staring at you. That’s all I found to say.
" Yes, you are staring at me".
" I'm not".
I wanted to ask her if she wants some magic chewing gum, I wanted to ask her if she wants to come over after school to play with my dolls, but my tongue was paralyzed.
"Stop staring at me!" – She snapped at me.
I didn’t know what to say, but I didn’t dare to look at her anymore. So I stared at the yellow flowers on her white skirt.
"Leave me alone, please". She sighed. "I’m new and I need to find friends".
She left me alone in the bathroom. I went back to the classroom and was sitting there until the geography class had started. The teacher was speaking about the mountains, the mines in the mountains, and the minerals in the mines, and I couldn’t concentrate on what she was saying. I wished she had been talking about the goblins and elves living in the mines of the mountains, but she didn’t say a word about them, as if they didn’t exist at all. I felt again the overwhelming compulsion to run round and round the classroom, to scream, to explode. Goblins know how to turn invisible. I climbed silently under my desk, and started to crawl out.
I just have to reach the door and then I can start running. No one would miss me if I leave, and I wouldn’t miss anyone, so if this world is a logical world they will let me leave.
"Ms Mansfield, Emily is under my table! "A girl yelled. I wasn’t invisible anymore, the magic had gone.
-"Emily", - the teacher asked," would you share with us what exactly are you doing under the table?"
I didn’t know what to reply. I was staring at the feet of the screaming girl.
"She thinks she is a bear, she wants to crawl back to the circus". Someone whispered, and the girls were giggling. I pictured myself in the circus, crawling around with bears, jumping through flaming rings, and I had to laugh.
"You are making jokes here? You find it funny, Emily?" The teacher asked. " What will your mother say about this?"
"Why can’t you be a normal little girl like your classmates?" – My mother asked me that evening, after consulting with Ms Mansfield.
" I’m not a little girl". – I said.
If they were little girls, then I couldn’t be one.
"What are you then, if not a little girl?" – My mother asked me. "A little boy?"
A goblin is neither a he, nor a she. A goblin is an ‘it’. Emilit.
" I can be invisible". I said. " I can disappear anytime I want. Do you want me to show you?"
I held my breath and disappeared. Then I exhaled and appeared again.
" I don’t like little girls". I said to my mother. "If I will ever be a mother and I give birth to a little girl, I will leave her in the supermarket. Or exchange her for a male dog".
"Emily, Emily, Emily!". – My mother said.
The following day I was standing on the courtyard of the school, and suddenly I found myself in the centre of the circle. This was the moment I had always dreamed of, and when finally it happened, my blood ran cold.
"We will play with you". They said.
I shook my head.
" I don’t want to play with you". – I said.
"You will play with us". they said. "We will play the school game. You are the teacher, and we are the students".
They gave me a piece of chalk, posted me in front of the wall, and cordoned me with their white skirts. They were waiting for the bear to perform, they wanted circus. I stared dumbly at the yellow-flowered firing squad.
I thought that the moment would never end, and that I would grow old there in the centre of the circle, but suddenly the silence exploded: they burst into screams of laughter. I stood paralyzed where I was placed, in front of the wall, in the fire of laughter.
I started screaming when my mother told me that she had asked Ms Mansfield to speak with the other little girls and tell them to play with me.
"Stop screaming". my mother said. I didn’t stop screaming. My mother went to her bedroom, locked the door and turned up the radio. I was hitting the door and screaming, until I got exhausted.
"How could she do that?" I asked my dolls. My dolls were speechless.
"How could she do that?" I asked my father. My father was speechless.
Thereafter the little girls started to play with me, and I realized how comforting my solitude was before. They took me to their homes after school, they combed my hair and dressed me, but I didn’t say a word and they weren’t satisfied. They cut my hair short and gave me orders, they bit my nose and untwisted my arms, they pushed me under the water but I remained silent and they weren’t satisfied. I was hiding in the laundry, but they found me again and placed me back on the shelf. I was staring at them, speechless, arms untwisted.
*
Then I grew up.
It took some time, but I survived my childhood. I was looking desperately for so long for those adults , speaking in calm and comforting voices, drinking cold lemonade on a shaded terrace. And when I found them, I saw that they were all wearing white skirts with yellow flowers.