Friday, May 31, 2024

Friday Fiction: Maggie (The Return)

 


The Return 

            Maggie Mud-and-Snails put her luggage down and looked at the house with suspicion, hands on hips.  It certainly looked like the old place deep down in its bones, but there was a certain air about it, a sort of superficial jauntiness, that told her that her own people were long gone.  She checked the address on the grubby piece of paper in her hand.  Yes, it was the same: 558 Loop Drive.  She decided to have a look around the grounds, for old times' sake, to see what she could see.

            She wasn't worried that any new owner would notice her.  Maggie was part of that particular piece of reality called Imaginary, and as such was used to most folks not paying her any mind.  If anyone could have seen her on that late October afternoon, they would have observed a small person about three feet high, wearing a green dress that on closer examination was made of long stems of grass.  On even closer examination they would see that the grass was growing right out of her body, which was dark gray mud, flecked with pebbles and the fragments of snail shells. Her hair, which from a distance might be taken for beaded cornrows, was a cluster of snail shells, point up, thrust into the mud of her head.

            If the hypothetical observer had stuck around this long and been bold enough to get a little closer, they would have seen that this uncanny little girl was squinting her shiny black eyes and settling her molded mouth in tight judgement.  And now they would have certainly fled in anticipation of trouble as Maggie began a determined march of inspection across the front yard.

            She noted sadly that the sheltering ash trees were gone, although the pecan trees had grown statelier and were finally producing nuts.  She reached down and picked up a partly decayed pecan, the inside black and wormy and withered.  She looked at it a moment, and then popped it in her mouth and crunched it up, shell and all. 

            A burst of flavor, long untasted but never forgotten, filled her cheeks: the unmistakable tang of the homesoil, drawn up through the roots of the tree and partially released into the earth again.  This abided; this was flesh of her flesh and bone of her bone, still.  Her expression softened a little, and there was a bit more shine in her eyes as she went on, cautiously, attentively, slowly tuning herself to the subtler vibrations of memory and time.

            The half-rectangle sidewalk that connected the front porch to the back was another loop of time, a hoop of turning energy that flowed like a concrete stream at Maggie's feet.  She stepped onto it, and, though it was solid to the touch, she felt something like a great wind pushing at her back, trying to hurry her along.  The little mud girl felt that if she let go, she might tumble along that stream forever.  She fought it.  Planting herself firmly, she took one slow deliberate step after another, looking attentively side to side.

            Maggie paused when she came to the crook in the pavement just where it turned at the garage.  Off to the left there was a pale, silvery light hovering over a patch of ground.  She stared at it, then reached out her palm tentatively to feel.  A wave of sorrow, anger, resignation, love, and--was it astonishment?--radiated toward her hand. 

            Something important had happened here, and the emotions lingered, but she could make nothing of it.  All she could tell was that it had mattered hugely to her people, and not to anyone else who had come after.  Maggie bowed her head, then in tribute she broke off her little finger and crumbled it to dust and tossed it toward the light.  The specks circled the glimmer as if caught in a whirlwind, turning to shimmering motes like a dust of diamonds, and were gone.  She moved on.  

Notes

Maggie was, of course, my 'imaginary friend' from childhood, named (if I'm remembering correctly) after my Mom's friend who came over to play Chinese checkers with her, but otherwise sharing no other elements. I seem to remember quite consciously making her up, never really 'believing' in her as such, but somehow thinking it would be nice to have an imaginary friend (such things featured quite a lot in popular culture, especially in family comedies in those days, like My Three Sons or Family Affair). Another element (unconscious) was that it would be something to make me stand out from the herd of brothers. Maggie might have even been the childhood equivalent of the Anima I have mentioned here before. Anyway, she has worked her way into several of my short stories (like Come Together and Friend You Haven't Met). Mud-and-Snails was a name I only added much later. There is also this poem:

Maggie Was


Maggie was

Mud and snails one day

And beautiful the next.

 

Maggie had

A birthday every day

And grass for lunch.

 

Maggie lived

Behind the mysterious door

With the water heater.

 

Maggie's friends

Were innumerable invisible mice

and Ghosty Ghost.

 

Maggie spoke

Only to me

And I told her tales to my brothers.

 

Maggie's still

A part of me

And never really left.

 

 

October 21, 02015


1 comment:

  1. John reminds me that it was Wahoo that they played, a game involving the same type of board and marbles, and including dice. Also he says the friend's name was Agnes; though Maggie might well have been her nickname. Their board (which was a big heavy ring of wood) was kept tucked between the sink and the refrigerator.

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