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Queen of the Listhrips
This is a story my girlfriend wrote, thought I would share it with you (with her permission of course).
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I am queen of the listhrips: they dance around my feet as I step to and fro; they gather by my side as I read in the garden; and they seem flutter with happiness when I smile and call them the greatest. This has always been fact. The listhrips live in my garden, surrounded with flowers and grass and I do not know where they sleep at night: but it seems at twilight they gather at the light that lightens the story I write.
I don’t know whether the listhrips were always called as such. They seem to me to suit the name, so I rewarded them with it when they comforted me at night as I cried. Twilight is our favourite hour, for it reminds us of our dependence on one another. Two years ago my mother told me to never depend on a man, so instead these tiny insects are my dependency: we are currently working together towards some kind of a sad, miniature happiness in the world.
My mother, she told me “not to depend on a man” while sucking on her cigarette, topping up a gauntlet of wine, pulling at her mascara and coughing out the fumes, the one scene in my life that I imagine one day telling people to summarise her in every way. Her teeth are stained from the tobacco, her hair is wire-like from the peroxide, and her jewellery is fine. Her girlfriends each have skin tones that seem stranger and stranger as you look from one to another: each more golden and orange than the last. I’ve never met a child as young as myself born with orange skin. I’ve seen pink hues, whites, blacks and yellows, but never orange: it is the colour of our mothers, and I predict someday I will awaken with skin orange just the same.
My mother never deserves the title of the listhrip. Her friends and her do not fly around me as I cry each night, she instead sends Alfred or new toys: but Alfred’s games of tag are unlike the ones that father played, and no where near as pleasing as that of the listhrips. The toys are boring and cannot move without my help. I do not want to have to help them move, just as mother does not want to help me smile. She simply wants to see it done for her. I told her this as an explanation and request for the toys to be returned and excluded from my ninth birthday, and she burst into tears. She finally composed herself and asked to be excused. Alfred stood up and said he too was no longer hungry, frowned at me, and later entered my quarters to discuss how rude I had been. I didn’t see how I had been rude, for it was the truth, but he insisted I needed to see how my mother must feel. I replied, ‘useless’, and he asked why. I said I didn’t know.
Alfred asked me today if I miss my Dad. I say I can see him anytime I want. He questioned the meaning of the statement. I told him that, since I’m no where near thirty, I still have the ability to close my eyes and imagine anything. He laughed at me for a second, then frowned at the ground. ‘No, no you’re quite right,’ he muttered to the ground, causing me to stare at it and wonder what it was saying to him, until he finally was looking at me again: ‘no where near thirty at all.’
Thanks and please comment,
Lee!
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