Bowl of Cherries

It's a cheery thought, really, despite its outward appearance. Most things can be cheery if you really try. You just have to come at it from a different angle. Most things. There's an exception to every rule... don't tell me about the paradoxical circles that makes. I don't want to hear about them.

Cheery thoughts.

How many hours left? I don't know; I'm getting tired of counting. The clock blinks a bright four-in-the-morning at me, but I'm too awake to even begin to think of trying to sleep... I can't. I've filled my belly with ice cold water in an attempt to freeze the butterflies into blue crystals, but I haven't stayed still enough to find out if it's working.

It can be a cheery thought... Cheery is red. I don't like red. But red is the color of cherries and strawberries and blood, and I like cherries and strawberries and blood keeps me alive and able to make cheery thoughts...

I'm tired.

I roll over on my bed, my face pressed into the pillow. If it's four-in-the-morning now, that means in twenty-four hours it will be four-in-the-morning again, and a nice seven hours from then... Cherries and strawberries and blood, and a train will leave and I'll be the only one there at the station again. So how many hours is that? Thirty-one? I can't do math anymore. I'm sorry. I tried. I really did.

So.

What do you want to talk about?

It's four-in-the-morning, but I will make lists and pictures and then I'll know what to say to you in seven hours and in thirty-one hours.

Cherries?

I can make cherries. Thoughts are like cherries. Cheery thoughts are like cherries without stones. Oh, that's a song, and I know how to sing it... But you'll be long gone before I think I have the courage to sing you my song about cherries with no stones.

I have a cherry, a cherry without a stone. You'll get to go where you've always wanted to go, all your life. I know you'll be happy. And I'll be happy that you'll be happy, so somewhere along there, I should be content. You'll get to go and see all the things you've always wanted to see, and do all the things you've always wanted to do, and then... then maybe, when you come back, you'll tell me about it and I'll get to rest in your arms and listen to your voice.

If you come back.

Of course you'll come back.

And maybe, when you tell me about everything you've been waiting to tell me, I will be so amazed and interested that you will say, "You should go sometime."

But it's four-in-the-morning, and the future is still so very far away, and I have to have a bowl of cherries with no stones for you in seven hours.

My eyes sting and I drag my hand angrily across my face. I'm not supposed to cry.



The alarm startles me awake. I hate my alarm. It's a cherry stone in audible form. I move around in some sort of brain-dead mode, because I'm not ready to remember that I only have twenty-six hours left. Change clothes. Brush teeth. And hair, if I remember. Try to look decent. I don't care if I look decent. I don't care, I don't care, I don't care, because I will be so very very beautiful in twenty-seven hours... that's how it always works.

I somehow manage to swallow some sort of nourishing breakfast and tie my shoes in a horrendous knot that I'll never get undone. I don't care how it happened. My bowl of cherries without stones is only half-full, so I hope you've remembered to get some too.

It's too bright and warm outside to think. I let my deadened mind take me to the woods and I wander around, quite unprotected and vulnerable, pretending I don't know I'm crying. My bowl of cherries without stones might spill. But no. Not yet. Not till you're here to help me pick them up.

I stop walking and blink. I need to laugh. I need to pretend, I need to deny, I need to die in my head for awhile so I never, ever, ever have to think about all the stones I've left at home under my bed.

"Hello."

I wrap my arms around my stomach, holding down the ugly, clawed butterflies that want to make my intestines bleed.

"Hi," I say.

Turning around is too risky. In a moment. Just a moment.

"You okay?"

Stop sounding so concerned! I am fine. I have a bowl of cherries for you -- cherries without stones. Your favorite.

"I'm fine," I say, and turn around to smile. It's easy to smile at you. You look relieved to see my now tearless face, and you reach to grab my hand.

Twenty-five-and-a-half hours.

But we talk. We talk and I give you all my cherries, one by one, and they make you smile because you don't know how very carefully I've removed the stones and hidden them. I hide them so that you don't know how very jealous I am and how very selfish I am and how very much I wish you wouldn't go away. I am a good friend. I am a good friend, a good friend who loves you, and I don't want you to know how very much I want you to stay...



It's four-in-the-morning again. I'm awake, too awake to even begin to think of trying to sleep, and I'm out of cherries and only have a bowl of stones. I used up all my cherries. I gave them all to you. I don't know how to make these thoughts cheery anymore. You are going away from me, going to all the places that I've always wanted to go, all the things I've wanting to see, going to do all the things I've ever wanted to do... without me. I don't know what I'm going to do, I don't know how my cherry tree will survive. How did it grow without you, anyway?

I have seven hours.

The clock flashes an aggressive reminder into my eyes, but I can't blink or I'll start crying and I can't start crying because I'll never stop, and saltwater kills trees. Especially cherry trees. Especially my cherry tree.

I need to laugh.

I roll onto my back and stare at the pictures I've drawn on the ceiling. There's a lot of cherries, but I'm not obsessed or anything. I just need visual representations of things or I go insane and cry and kill trees. Cherry trees. My cherry tree.

There's also a train, stretching far away into a vanishing point that I don't know how to reach, and a sun that's dripping onto the train, and a very very small little girl standing beneath the train, holding a giant cherry in one hand and a giant stone in the other.

I'm very proud of my drawings.



The alarm wakes me up, and I remember how very much I hate my alarm. My eyes are swollen and tender and I wonder how long I cried. I don't sleep much anymore. I know a song about cherries with no stones, and now I only have two hours and I'll never sing it for you, and I never told you about my bowl of cherry stones and I don't think you know how very many cherries you've had.

I brush my hair down smooth and pretty today. Red seems appropriate for the occassion, so a small red ribbon is fastened around my ponytail. I wash my face and brush my teeth and I have tiny little sparkles of earrings that also seem somehow appropriate.

And I pull on my ratty shoes, cut the laces off with scissors, replace them with red braids that I made for this moment, and wander mindlessly outside.

I know where I'm going.

You're already there at the station, but we are an hour and a half early, and there's no one else here to hug you and take up your time and give you cherries. I think I'm the only one who gives you cherries. I've been careful. I've seen the look in your eyes when people show you the stones and cry about how much they'll miss you. I watched Lizzy kiss your cheek, and then burst into tears. I watched you hug her awkwardly, and you didn't know I saw. But I did. And I don't want to cry when I say goodbye. I want you to hug me like you're happy.

"How are you?" You ask. You sound happy, I think.

I smile. "I'm fine. How are you?"

You don't answer my question. You're watching my eyes.

"How are you?" You ask again.

Repetition is a bad sign.

"I said I was fine."

"How are you?"

"Fine."

"How are you?"

I stop and look away. The tracks stretch away forever, to that horrible vanishing point. I imagine another girl, perhaps not so small, perhaps not so fragile... perhaps a little prettier, perhaps looking like Lizzy. Lizzy never had cherries, but maybe this other girl will. Many cherries. Cherries to keep you from remembering me.

"Look at me," you say. Your voice is commanding.

"I'm going to cry," I reply.

"I was hoping so."

Your arms are around me, holding me close and tight, and the tears burn down my face but I don't try to stop them now.

"I'm sorry," I whisper, muffled.

"Never be sorry for letting me hold you."

"I'm sorry for crying."

"I'm sorry for leaving you."

My breath drags over my throat.

"You're a brave girl," you say, and I turn red to hear the smile in your tone.

"No, I'm not."

"Yes."

"I'm crying."

"I know."

You know about the cherries. I don't know. I never told you.

When you let go to look at me, I am embarrassed for my red eyes, red like strawberries and blood and ribbons and laces and cherries, but somehow it doesn't really seem to matter.

"I'll be back," you say. And you smile.

It's a cheery thought...