Little Red House in the Woods; Rock is on a Holiday or is He?

ROCK’s narrative is completely different than Lm’s; same team with different stories. His voice is gravelly, hoarse and deep. He looks stern and yet if he became human, he would be an interesting type of handsome. He would favor perhaps a weathered and a rugged actor such as Sam Elliot or Morgon Freeman. He thrives on being surrounded by nature, fresh air and cool, wet moss. Most Rocks do prefer to be kept outside but by now you know he is a very special kind of stone. Lm is refusing to leave the little red house. She favors her mother in mannerisms when angry, furrowing her brows and wincing, yet she has BadDad’s freckled red complexion with a crooked smile and his light blue eyes that squint in the sunlight. Overall, Lm asks “Why do I have to look like the one who hurt me most, left me over and over again and snapped my trust in LOVE into the ground so hard that I continue to fight and dig myself out of this pain to this very day, meaning NOW?” Lm reminds ROCK of a young Hemingway descendant or Sissy Spacek in the horror film Carrie and when she is tender, she has a bit of Lindsey Lohan. As a child, she began using her empathetic nature to sniff out trouble, find reasons to help others, meaning humans, dogs, dead birds who needed burying and had a list of ways to make people smile. She knew her babysitter loved her hair combed and despite it’s oily smell she would sit on the sofa behind her sitter and comb her hair and watch Gilligan’s Island. Her step-father irritated her and yet he could also make her laugh. He had told her mother that she was to hard on Lm and she wished her mother had listened. Her moods are always whipping all around like a cyclone of anxiety, or as if one is walking on a dusty trail in the Arizona desert behind an Appalosa but not riding it. Whimpers come from under the bed and ROCK tries to pull her out and coax her with some fun memories. Remember when you and your grandparents were driving to your great-grandparents farm in Georgia and “Nanny” wanted to get out in the eastern hills of Tennessee and look for UFO’s? Remember you lying in the back seat with the windows cracked and the smell of Paw-Paw’s pipe filled with cherry tobacco and how he claimed you as his special girl? Why can’t you focus on “AP” dancing and giving you your first Tom Robbins book “Still Life With Woodpecker”? Think, think, dig for the good stuff and remember how much your beloved friend still is here for you! She is in your heart on call and she has guided you through life like an angel from heaven? She is the sister, the mother, the leader and the one who taught you to try and keep going. Think how she would be if she were here right now. “AP” has not been introduced to readers until today. She lives far away near where Lm was born; Lm lives in Scandanvia. Lm lashes out at ROCK, “she would not be like you pushy face!” then, “she would crawl under this bed with me!”. Pouting and picking at old wounds Lm has resolved to be mute today. Her bad memories of unexpected slaps by her mother’s hand stinging her face, her mother’s pinching on her skin and under her breath words, angry stares, and mostly the belt with holes blazing across her raw pale buttocks. The criticism and strict rules all are puffing up and causing Lm tears. Lm stopped talking, eating and trying to be seen as a teen and still falls back into the hole, rewatching the reel to reel of memories that made her who she is. Meeting “AP” was by far good timing; they both were on dates seated closely together at a cabaret with music and cigarette girls. That fateful night in 1981 they shared champagne. Lm was eighteen and lost like a kitten on the side of the road. “AP” would become, even to this day her most trusted, loyal friend, the strong, older sister she never had and when she laughs she makes a very special giggly sound, when she talks she goes from subject to subject and Lm understands “AP” as she bounces her thoughts around. ROCK decides to go out and guard the door; Lm stays under the bed pretending her best friend is with her and pulls out her pastels, her old photos, thinks of camping under the stars with “AP”, reading Thoreau, identifying flowers and plants and is soothed for now. Lm is so tired and he is worried she will not pull herself through this blockage of physical and emotional pain without “AP”. There are no magic wands or fairies yet he does not argue with Lm about her whims and silly beliefs because they make her happy. ROCK is outside and she has locked him out in the rain. He will let her draw, escape, cry and believe in all the magic love can bestow upon her. This vacation is not for Lm, it’s for ROCK. She will feel raw, scalded and lonely and sink deeper and deeper, down into her traumatic past and drag each memory up. She will sob, lose all the progress she has been working on and he will have to go back to ground zero with her. There are never enough minutes in the day, enough room for perfect dreams in the night or enough hands to hold when she slips and falls into the scattered past that swallows her heartbeat and hope.

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Photo by Andrea Polla