riotheclown

a small vinette for the week three challenge over at Brigit Flame

Sparkle

They were scooping up the mercury with spoons, chasing the beads of it on the white sheets after the thermometer broke.

“This is fun, it’s like it’s alive.” Mouse said, her glassy eyes sparkling.

“It’s POISON. It’ll get in your skin and you’ll get cancer. We have to clean it all up!”

Cancer was the BOOGY man of all the bad things that could happen to you. She felt like paper, hot and cold and sort of transparent, her breath was like little puffs, she felt like a comic strip character, not real, but REAL.

“We should take the sheet off my bed and wash it!” she told Anna and looked to see if a pointed balloon was holding the words she just said.

Her older sister was boney and pale and her dark hair hung limply on the shoulders of her flannel nightgown. She was looking angry, intent on the job of corralling all the bits of mercury into larger and larger globs on the bed sheet. It was 1963. She was thirteen, old enough to babysit. Mouse was like a baby still, even though she was five and shouldn’t still have acted like one.

“No, cause mom and dad will come home and want to know why the sheet is off the bed and I’ll get in trouble! You are such a brat! Why did you break it!!!” her voice was nasal and pinched.

Mouse shivered. She shivered again. The mercury ran around from the edge of the spoon but cleaved into balls. Mouse thought she could hear a “Waahumph” sound each time drops were reunited, a little mercury “Yalp” of joy at finding its lost part. “Look at it, it wants to be together.”

“Yeah, it’s neat huh? It expands with heat and they put it in the little glass and it gets forced up when it gets warm and shrinks down when it’s cold. The marks tell you what is normal and what is not.”

“Huh.” Mouse was shaking. “I feel funny.”

Anna came and put the inside of her wrist to Mouse’s forehead the way she had seen her mother do.

“You got a fever dummy. I have to finish cleaning up all this before they come home.” Anna was feeling important and acting severe but kindly. “Go get in my bed and I’ll bring you some water to drink.”

Mouse went and climbed in Anna’s bed. It was by the window and if you tilted your head a bit you could see between the buildings a little patch of dark sky. It was cloudless and there were stars sparkling. She felt as if the sparkling stars were parts of her wanting to be reunited, as if they had fallen out of her eyes and wanted to come back. Her eyes resisted closing, kept staring at the stars so they wouldn’t get lost from her.

Anna came with the glass of water and helped her sit up. “You don’t look right Mouse.”

“I’m missing.”

“What?”

“I’m missing parts of my sparkle.” Tears welled up in her eyes.

“I’m calling mom and dad!”

“Your missing your sparkle too Anna. That’s why you are always mad at me ‘cause you can see me missing my sparkle like you can feel your missing sparkle.”

“Shut up! You are crazy cause of the fever! I’m calling mom and dad.” But Mouse didn’t think they would understand. It wouldn’t register. Like the comic strip characters she loved, she appeared flat and unsubstantial and they could not be bothered to read the balloons over her head that said, “Look at me, I sparkle.”

It all ran out and spilled onto the night sky.