Day 96.

I never posted this-- but it was part of my CSSSA Application, the creative nonfiction assignment about telling a childhood memory in the voice of a child.

My family, we go to the zoo. There are orangutans, with swingy arms and deep-back eyes, and a baby they leave on the ground while they climb so high my head can't tilt anymore. And there are flamingoes, lots of them, pink and red like loud valentines. And there is a polar bear with tangled fur, a wrong sun-yellow. And he keeps going in the pool and getting out again and I yell, stop it polar bear, stay in or go out, but he doesn't listen. When I turn around Mommy is gone and Connie and Daddy are walking away and so I gallop to catch up and my purple jacket is slipping from its knot at my middle, so I try to hold it up and look sideways at everything i am running by, all the tanks and nets and bars. But tall leg trunks are everywhere, moving so I can't see clearly. But it's okay because I read Harriet the Spy and so I follow Connie and Daddy to the bathroom and we wait there a long long time and I try to touch every plant, ripping off leaves and tearing them into tiny pieces, dropping the pieces. Daddy says to stop. And finally mommy comes out and I hear daddy ask How much blood? And his glasses are pushed up by the wrinkles in his face. Mommy says, Too much. I ask for a churro because i can smell them so close and hear sugar crunchy rolling on my tongue already. But then Mommy asks for my purple jacket to tie around her middle and before she ties it on I see the spot on the back of her pants, like she's trying to steal a flamingo, and then we run run run to the car and I am laughing because when I run with mommy sometimes my feet forget to touch the ground. And then we're in the parking lot, magma asphalt I feel through my socks and my shoes, and the way Daddy closes the car door is different and the way he drives is different and there is a hunch in his back.
It is Adventure and it feels scary. I lie flat out on the car seat and look up at the changing sky and play with the pages of Red Fish Blue Fish. I want to turn more pages because everything is happening too slowly and I have too many questions.