...because the simplest of words become stories for a lifetime...

It was a cool summer evening that marked the end of the summer. 

 

‘How was your holiday?’, asked Margo.

 

‘It was great! We spent the summer travelling Europe!’, replied Aggie, sun-kissed and excited about her experiences.

 

‘First, we went to France, then to Germany and ... you went to your grandparents’ cottage for summer again, right?’

 

‘Yes, but...’ started Margo, gently touching her finger.

 

 ‘Oh, let me tell you what happened in Italy! I’ve had….’ 

 

Margo cared about her friend very much, and so she listened but had Aggie asked, she would have known about her best friends’ holiday, but she didn’t. And sometimes you simply miss the chance to ask.

 

*

 

Margo spent two weeks at her grandparents every year. She would go swimming in a nearby lake, cycle along the dam, pick basketfuls of fruits from the garden, stuff her face with all the types of berries you can possibly imagine. Those were the peaceful days of come-back-to your-roots type of family holidays every year. This year she decided to explore the old shed at the end of the garden which held toys all the way back to her grandmother’s childhood and possibly even farther on. As she slowly uncovered one forgotten treasure after another, lying them carefully across the lawn, she came across an ordinary yellow-paged, leather-bound and crumbling old notebook.  All the pages though were empty. 

 

She sat down marveling at her discoveries and decided to draw them. She quickly drew the scene in front of her; the boxes, old dolls, rocking horse, broken carousel, gray and molten teddy bears, storybooks and many toys she could not begin to imagine how to play with. She was so pleased with her picture that she finished it with a flamboyant signature, like a true artist.

 

In the evening, she wanted to share her picture with her grandparents but as she opened the notebook, the picture was smudged. The items got displaced around the page and were hardly recognisable. Disappointed she put the notebook away. Next time she would use proper tools, she decided. 

 

And so, the next day she sat down in a similar fashion, by the campfire with toys scattered on the lawn and water colours at ready for her next masterpiece. 

 

She slowly opened the notebook and stared. Was that her picture? Surely, those were all the lines that she had drawn the day before, but they were not hers really. Instead, they moved and created a picture she did not recognise, an unfamiliar creature. It had big beady eyes, soft body bent in many directions, a mischievous smile on its lips. Margo lifted her finger and tried to smudge the picture for surely this was not what she had drawn and yet the signature was hers. Unexpectedly, the creature opened its mouth and bit Margo’s finger! 

 

‘Auch!’ She shouted, but there was no real pain. The bite was soft, like a touch of nettle. It left a buzzing sensation but no mark. 

 

The creature in the picture that was not her own then lifted its head and said:

 

‘You signed your name, your name… I’m with you forever, forever… ‘

 

Margo looked at her hand, then at the creature and around. She was alone, except for the big eyes following her every move. And the eyes were slowly fading, the lines were fading,  the whole picture was fading. The leaves rustled in the wind and the creature in the picture was gone. All that remained was her signature at the bottom of the old yellowed page. 

 

Margo stood up with a start and ran towards the house. 

 

‘Mum, I got bitten!’ She shouted

 

Her mum looked at the hand worriedly at first.

 

‘There’s nothing darling.’, she said, rubbing a smudge off of Margo’s finger. ‘You just need to wash your hands better.’

 

Margo looked at her finger and there really was what looked like the tiniest smudge on her finger. She lifted her eyes, not sure what to do- was she imagining things? -just to get a glimpse of her grandma with a knowing smile on her lips. She didn’t ask but at that moment she knew.

 

*

 

‘…the best pizza in my entire life!’ continued Aggie.

 

 And so, Margo continued to stroke her finger with a secret content smile, that looked so much like her grandma’s. Some experiences are better not shared, she thought.