To eat is to survive to be hungry.—Alan Watts
Vivian lay across the window seat, tracing patterns on the glass and gazing out into the garden, where her mother’s rosebushes stood frosted with snow.
The entire house was filled with roses—Mother kept three bushes in the little conservatory so they could enjoy the blooms all year. Vivian liked the roses, although sometimes she wished her mother liked another kind of flower, too. Roses got boring after a while.
Mother entered the room and sat with Vivian on the cushions. “Have a good Christmas, then, darling?”
Vivian rolled over and smiled. “Yes, thank you. Did you like the necklace I made you?”
“I’m wearing it now. See?” Mother opened the collar of her blouse and fingered the tiny beads. “It’s lovely, Vivian. Like you.”
Vivian reached out with her finger and gravely touched the tip of Mother’s nose. “Happy Christmas, Mother.”
“Happy Christmas.”
Vivian rolled back to the window, but Mother lingered on the cushions. “You’re awfully quiet. Is something on your mind?”
Vivian touched the glass the same way she’d touched her mother’s nose. “Thinking.”
“About what?”
“Wants.”
“Oh? Was there something you wanted for Christmas that you didn’t get?”
Vivian hesitated. “Yes and no. I was thinking yesterday about eating.”
“Eating.”
“I get hungry because I need food to live. Just so I can live to be hungry again.”
“That’s terrible, Vivian! There’s more to life than eating,” Mother chided.
“Maybe I’m not saying it right. I just meant it’s the same. I want something, then I get it and when I’ve got it, soon I’ll want something new. No matter what you get, there’s always something else to want.”
“You’re so precocious, Vivian. Catastrophically precocious, sometimes.”
Vivian shrugged. “There’s something I want, but I don’t know what I’d do if I got it. Because what’s next? I think if I got it, I would always be happy. But what if I wasn’t? And what would I want next?”
Mother took Vivian’s hand. “We all want, my love. It’s part of being human. So what do you want?”
Vivian glanced down at the wheelchair near her feet. “I want to walk.”
Suddenly Mother was hugging her tightly, rocking Vivian back and forth and weeping into her hair.
“Or a model submarine to play with in the bathtub,” Vivian murmured. “That would be fun.”
Copyright 2005 Amy Frushour Kelly. All rights reserved.
Reproduction by any means prohibited without prior written consent.