The Girls Who Couldn't Quite Get It Right

Experimental Folklore

Once upon a time, in a land far far away, there lived a girl who couldn’t quite get things right. She came from a nice family. And lived in a nice house. That came with a big backyard they had tried to plant blueberry bushes in one summer. But the slugs came. And carried the fleshy blue globes away to the damp darkness. The girl imagined (not for the first time) that they sat around an acorn cap table, dividing the berries into fives using a combination of formless appendage and the hustled blade edge of a waxy magnolia leaf. 

She pictured the family, wordlessly whomping on about their day using pheromone extracts from the slime they carried with them wherever they went. She thought about this and was not so mad about the lack of blueberries that summer. 

But this was part of the problem with the girl. She imagined too much. And acted too little. Her own output, by all accounts, was not so dissimilar to the mucosy drag of her fellow slug. Which was perhaps why she felt a small kinship towards these tiny beasts. 

As time went on, the girl learned to hide certain parts of herself. The parts that asked too many questions. Had too many thoughts. Couldn’t remember which way to turn to get to piano practice. Even though she’d been going once a week for the last 6 years. Even though it was right down the road from her very nice house. That kept her very nice family. She was ashamed that she couldn’t remember things. Important things. Things that mattered to the outside world. 

She was told to pay closer attention. That she could thumb in all her vacancies, by simply trying harder. So she tried and tried. To memorize and recite. To pay closer attention. But she still couldn’t hold on to the things she couldn’t hold on to. She still couldn’t quite get it right. So eventually, she stopped asking questions. Stopped picturing slugs sitting around dinner tables. Stopped believing she was right about mostly anything. And this went on and on. 

Until her 41st birthday . . . 

… to be continued

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So much love,

Rosie :)