She felt there was a darkness that was around her. It was something she did not understand, but deep down realised it was there. Her parents had a sadness hovering around them, even though she could see they were trying to hide it, she could see it. And she wondered if it was her.
She remembered how playing in the curtains at her Grandies house felt. Sometimes they moved in the breeze like they were alive with a flowing dance. Then other times she would walk through them or she would twirl inside them like a tiny ballerina. And as they wrapped around her she would peer through the translucent material. Their transparency would change the way things looked. The room or the view outside would be the same but different, not clear but distorted, almost not real.
And that was how she felt now looking at her parents, both seeming to go about each day but in a cloudy way. She could tell but not totally understand why it felt like there was a fuzzy curtain seemingly there in some sort of way.
So, she decided it would be her that made the day, and each day, brighter. Picking the tiny flowers that grew in the grass. Showing her mum how she could dance and sing. And helping Dad with the chickens, even the pecky ones.
Because if it was her that was the curtain that was covering her family, then when mummy came home, she was going to make sure to make it right!
(Copyright 2021 Kevin Palmer, all rights reserved)