Mercedes gets a gift
Mercedes took the
dog out, and noticed a big package set on their front step, close to
the house, as if it was a step up to reach the rafters. But no, it
was a reach down this time, move and go inside. But Mercedes
couldn't lift the box, so she asked her brother to come and help her,
but he said, Can't do it, you'll have to open it out here. It was
noon, and the sun had warmed the box, and Mercedes laid her hands
upon it, looking it over, seeing if she could topple it. All she saw
was her own name printed on top....it was actually to her, and it
wasn't even her birthday, or Christmas, what could it be?
“Where are the
scissors?” she asked her brother.
“In the knitting
box,” he told her.
She found them, and
ran out to cut open the box. She stood with the sun on her shoulders
and back, leaning down to cut down the middle. She unfolded the box,
and out flew a hundred different butterflies, all sizes and colors,
stringing this way and that, taking off and out of sight, nearly
knocking Mercedes down to the ground. When they had flown, and she
had seen them on their way, she looked deeper into the box, and there
was a slab of concrete, cement, some kind of piece of sidewalk. On
top of it, it read: “This is your platform.”
She could barely
lift it, but she did, and when she took it out of the box, underneath
was crushed, dried flowers, petals and stems. She gathered some of
them up in her hands and then blew them out into the yard. They
landed like whispers in perked up grass blades, they landed like the
only thing missing from her eyes, they landed like the next best kiss
she'd had since Dan.
“What is that,”
her brother asked upon coming out to investigate.
“It says, This is
your platform. It's a rock,” she told him. “It flattened the
flowers, but not the butterflies, it nearly flattened my toes, but
not my fingers. Don't you see, it's a stepping stone.”
“A stepping stone,
huh? Well only if you're standing on one foot.”
“I will stand on
one foot, ballerina into the wind.”
“Why don't you be
an ostrich, a pelican, a pink flamingo?”
“Maybe I will.
The platform it means, is balance. That is my platform. I think I
will paint my toes, then paint the rock, out here in a painted sky
where the butterflies fly.”
“You know like the
rock that you can't move, right? How you going to do that?”
“I know I can
still myself, make the ground go quiet, and the trees stop moving. I
know I can. And when I grow still, I know what it means...it means
someone still loves me.”
“Like who? If
it's who I think it is, he makes your knees shake.”
“No, not at all.
But my hands might shake.”
“If that's your
platform, you should go straight to a nunnery.”
“Are you kidding?”
“I'm not
kidding....stand on one leg and be poised as the 8 ball all night.”
“That's how you
win. That's how to be pressed like the flowers, and set free as the
butterflies,
and fit tight in the
box hand delivered. I will make a stand. And you will see, it will
be to the center of me.”
“Then it was a
good gift. Just leave me out of it, I'm going to get chocolate
milk.”
“Fine. I'll be
rising like a weathervane, pointed like a star, staying like a flag.”
“You platform,
huh?”
“Yes, my platform.
I'm moved, but not removed.”
Mercedes moved the
rock to the front by the bushes, and nestled it down deep in the
dirt. She took one step, that was all she needed. One step in the
right direction. One step to higher ground. One step to find her
silence. And it went on for an hour. She knew what it was meant
for.
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