Page 3 - GINGER
P. 3
“Oh you are here!”
He said as a matter of fact, sneaking his neck through the low door frame, to see her
standing on her toe tips over the wooden stool – hand outstretched all painty and
drenched. He watched her hand swing and dance over the wall, the brush having a life of
its own, unclear of what was hand and what her brush was.
“And all the world is a treasure of blue, stars of gold will wait…sing with me my rhyme nine
times…and whiff…”
“Papa! How many times do I have to ask you to not come in here, at least not till I am
done.”
She had her favourite song interrupted – the usual. It got her a little upset, enough to
smirk at him – more than usual.
She held her waist between her arms, clumsily forgetting all about her dripping paint
brush – most usual.
“Okay, Okay. But you are not skipping dinner tonight darling.”
He shut the door behind him, only to reveal to her that beam in the room once again,
dying, retrieving -always the same way. She had come to terms with the neon in her
room all the while growing up, but it still made her forget her song for a jiffy, and gurgled
her stomach in a magnetic pull.
Ginger.
She had never had another name. The name never really meant anything. She was found,
and what a discovery she was!
She was found and adopted one night, while her mother’s body had given up in the fight
between her own hunger and Ginger’s.
She was found quarterly grown up, at an age of colour blocks and nursery rhymes.
All she had ever heard was her mother’s song, and what she ever saw was the blue
beaming lights pulsating through the crevices of the walls, overshadowed by her
mother’s loving face, looking over her as she slipped every night into lullabying sleep.
“The world is a treasure, and you, my darling, are priceless.” She would kiss her eyelids
shut, and continue with her embroidery all night long.
And the words still echoed.
Years later, Ginger would everyday arrest in her room, live to paint and sing to live the
melodies of her mother. All that she remembered was the song.
