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Terry Collett |
Just As You Like It |
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I don't know how long she's been inside my head, it seems forever, but it's probably only about a year or so. She doesn't let me speak; I open my lips to say something and she's there, spewing out things that make little sense to those who hear the words; and thinking it's me they look at me with that stare they all have which seems to say: Poor you, how did you get it so bad.
My father sits down in a deck chair and lets his head rest with a mild satisfaction on his thick lips and protruding dark eyes. My mother, next to him, has little expression of satisfaction; her eyes have a cruelty that seeps through the drawn down lids.
"Look at those clouds," Father says, jutting out his stumpy finger. "Aren't they fine clouds, Reta?”
"I will no longer endure it," the voice says, leaving me dumb. My eyes stare at the seascape as if to divorce myself from the voice and words.
"You always loved the sea and clouds," Father says, sliding his eyes over me with the slowness of slugs.
"Know you where you are, sir?" the voice asks.
"Why you have conversations with her is beside me," Mother says. "She's not said a word of sense for over a year."
“Would you rather I said nothing to the child?" Father replies. His protruding eyes settle on Mother lazily.
"She's fifteen years old," Mother, states," hardly a child." She looks at me with my dark hair held by white bows and my plump body held within a white dress. "The day she speaks sense, if that comes, I'll speak to her myself quiet happily."
"Anna, you are too unkind to your daughter." Father looks away from Mother and allows his eyes to return to the sea and clouds.
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