A bit more NaNoWriMo (which I think I may have to give up on) and a sketch that doesn’t show up on my camera (I penciled it lightly because I’m going to watercolor it later) and so isn’t posted. Oh, the writing is in bits and pieces that may not necessarily follow each other in the way they are here.
Copyright Kathryn Walton-Elliott.
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“Well, I’ll just have to get a good night’s sleep then, won’t I?”
Chloe rolled her eyes and flopped into the chair she’d been hanging on.
“Get up, lazy bones, and set the table,” Mel chided.
Sonia dropped a kiss on Chloe’s head as she went through to the office.
“And, you,” Mel called after her, “don’t sit back down with those. Dinner’s ready.”
Chloe grabbed a handful of beaten-up old mismatched cutlery out of a kitchen drawer. She piled a knife and fork at three places. Rough pottery plates were dealt out next, followed by three worn, but colorful woven napkins.
Mel watched her daughter out of the corner of her eye. She seemed normal enough right now. She wasn’t chatting to anyone at all, let alone creatures Mel couldn’t see. Mel made a fist. Normal. She’d promised herself a long time ago that she would stop worrying about being normal. Chloe figured into this since Mel thought of Chloe as an extension of herself in some ways.
Put it out of your head. Leave it alone and have dinner with your family.
She put out a potholder and set the wok on the table with a bowl of couscous.
“Sonia, I told you not to get those bills out again. Dinner’s ready,” Mel called down the hall.
Chloe was already spooning veggies over her couscous. Mel thought about telling her to wait, but decided it didn’t matter.
“I was coming anyway, Mel. I only took so long because there was a message on the machine.”
“What about?” Mel asked as she served out the rest of the food.
“Seems Chloe hasn’t been doing her homework,” the reply was directed more to their daughter than to Mel.
“I do so.”
“Don’t be rude, Chloe. I just want to know what’s up,” Sonia frowned.
“It’s boring,” Chloe shrugged, “I’d rather be outside.”
“Talking to the sky,” put in Mel.
Chloe glared at her mom and pushed a piece of carrot to the side of her plate.
“Mel. What’s boring about it, sweet?” Sonia looked concerned.
“Sonia, she needs to do it even if it is boring. It helps her practice what she’s learning,” Mel pointed out, feeling irritated at the reprimand she’d received.
“I’m just curious. Maybe we could make it more fun.”
“I doubt it,” Chloe mumbled.
“You can go to another room until you’re ready to be helped and listened to,” Sonia said in a clipped voice, the concern replaced by annoyance.
Chloe stared at her food.
“You heard your Mama,” Mel said.
Chloe slid out of her chair and stalked off to her room. They didn’t get it. She wasn’t learning anything. Why practice what you already knew?
+
Mel let her fingers follow the curve of the pot. Ridges smoothed and gyrated as the wheel spun steadily. She stared down at the bulbous shape and imaged oily rainbows sliding up to the lips of its mouth. She missed this. She missed the guiding hands over her own the most. Nothing she ever did at the wheel was special, but the sense of rhythm, of a small universe protected by its own velocity… she missed that. Everything she did now seemed fraught with consequence. School, parenting, home… it all had too much riding on it. Here it didn’t matter what she did, just that she was here. If the pot fell into wet cracks and spun out into a torn flower she could start again and all that would be lost was time.
The wheel slowed down, bumping slightly before it stopped.
Why am I so unhappy?
She scraped the half-formed vessel off the wheel and pushed it back into a large bin of clay.
I have a wonderful partner, a bright, kind daughter, and the chance to help someone who needs it. I’m doing the job I worked towards. What has gone wrong?
Propping her already stained elbows on the scrapings of clay, she gazed about the workshop. Sonia’s finished pieces danced along the walls and her works in progress ghosted quietly under damp cloths. Sonia found herself here every day.
Is that my problem? Is it that I don’t know where to look for me anymore?
Sometimes Mel felt so angry and couldn’t figure out what she was angry at. It wasn’t any one person. It wasn’t any one thing. It simply was that she was about to collapse from fury she couldn’t express.
When that happened she tried to get away. Down to the beach or in here if Sonia wasn’t working. She hated the way she got with her family when that mood took her. The easiest thing was to get out of the way of anyone she might snap at. Eventually the tears would come and the tightness would slowly drain until she felt empty.
She scrapped her fingers through the old clay on the wheel, picking at hard, old scraps and trying to let her mind go blank.
She felt like crying. She felt like sleeping. She felt like returning to wherever she had come from. Something that did not require choice or effort.
+
“Who are you talking to?”
Chloe glanced back at Fredella and bit her lip before answering, “Sumptuous.”
“There’s no one there”, the other girl pointed out in a flat voice.
“You just can’t see him.”
“Doctor checked my eyes a couple years ago. I can see fine.”
“He’s hard to see.”
“Why? He small?”
Chloe giggled without thinking, stopping with a choke when she noticed Fredella’s face, “Sorry. It’s just… he’s huge.”
“Stop messing around with me.”
“I’m not.”
Fredella turned and stalked back to the house. Chloe watched her go and had a sinking feeling develop in the pit of her stomach.
“She doesn’t like me.”
“She can’t see you. She doesn’t know whether she likes you.”
Sumptuous frowned at this and scratched his head, “Why can’t she see me?”
Chloe shrugged. She’d never understood why more people didn’t notice such an obvious individual. She’d often longed to introduce him to her parents, but she knew that they couldn’t see him, that it would only cause problems.
