Month: November 2019

In the country…deep in the country, you know everyone…..their names and the nicknames assigned to them…

Hey, you even know the names of their dogs, cats, horses, cows, piggies, their picky hens and noisy roosters ….so when some stranger appears, he or she is quickly scrutinized, categorized and assigned an identifying tagline based on appearance, attitude and what we perceive as aptitude…like a trucker’s handle, with more thought put in to it…. (What else do we have to do?).

So World, meet Delta Dawn…. One night, just after sunset, she just was there, walking down the middle of the unpaved road…..

a flower in her hair, carrying what seemed to be a baby in a knitted shawl, she floated past us, her feet barely contacting the ground. She was tall with long blonde hair flowing past her waist, the face of an angel, so ethereal, so other worldly, so named Delta Dawn.

Where did she come from? Where was she going?

We the Good Children of the Forest, hid behind the bushes and spied on her, noting her apparel, her habits and her rigid routine…it seemed she had taken up residence in that unpainted ramshackle old house with the broken windows, sagging porch and gate with the missing slats.

Every night after sunset, she would push open the creaky front door, near off its hinges, walk carefully down the path to the alley, dressed in ankle length pastel dress of pink or blue or mint green or light lemon or a splashy floral of pastels, a fresh flower in her hair, flat sandals, cradling what we believed to be her baby, (after heated discussion and differences of opinion).  It was like a uniform, of sorts…always the same, always changing…in the winter she wore a long black coat, black lace up boots and a black hat, held in place by a thick net black scarf….with her long blonde hair still flowing down her back.

Back in the day, there were no libraries so we ran home and sought answers from the smartest people in our world, our parents – it was summer, so it was not like we could ask our teachers – anyway, seemed our parents were much smarter than those who had been hired to actually educate us…..Mother said, well, no one seemed to know much about her, not even Peg-Legged Jack or Mad-As-A-Hatter Maddie, or the Spinster Twins, Ina and Ivy, not even born the same day but we couldn’t tell them apart – ask your Father, Mother said (maybe sardonically)…He knows everything. 

Now Father was our Last Resource because he had a way of spinning fact and fiction, so although it might be a mighty good story, it could never be proven scientifically.  Not letting truth get in our way, we asked Father….and he had an answer (When did he not have an answer?) which brought more questions to our already hyperactive minds.

Delta Dawn, it seemed was a Fallen Angel, injected into our otherwise mundane life to teach us the lesson of what will happen to us if we didn’t walk the Straight and Narrow…Hadn’t we noticed on the back of her shoulders, down to her rib cage on each side, a small bony protrusion where her wings were once attached….Because of some grievous sin Delta Dawn committed, her wings fell off and she dropped to the Earth, landing where she was most needed….to show us the Way, the Truth and the Light.

We begged for more answers….what had Delta Dawn done that she would be so punished….what had we done that Delta Dawn was sent to live among us…so many questions…but Father took the Fifth Amendment….One day, when the time is right, all will be revealed, he said…Mother reminded us how she had said your Father knows everything, as they exchanged, I swear, it was a smirk…

I promise, I am working on it…and as soon as I know, you will know because a riddle without an answer is like a pig without a poke….So…

Delta Dawn, what’s that flower you have on?…Could it be a faded rose from days gone by? ….And did I hear you say he was a-meeting you here today? … To take you to his mansion in the sky?