Months short of six
Raina pauses
halfway through a glass of milk:
‘Papa,
what do you get
if all the numbers
in the world
are put together?’
‘Infinity.’
‘How do you write it?’
‘Like this...’
‘Looks like an 8
put to sleep.’
‘Why, yes, you’re right.’
‘Does it have all
the numbers?’
‘Yes, I suppose.’
She goes back
to her milk
and Cartoon Network.
And now,
months short of seven,
she says,
‘Papa,
I am thinking something.
You
are thinking something.
Mummy
is thinking something.
But I don’t know
what you are thinking,
I don’t know
what Mummy is thinking.
But why?’
How touching
that she thinks
Papa has the answer
to everything –
and how humbling.
Then she asks for
‘a really scary
ghost story’,
gets goose bumps listening
and goes to sleep snuggling
into her pillow.
Raina, you’ll soon forget
you’ve asked these questions:
may they return
to tease your adult years
in those special moments
when you’ll be alone with your thoughts
between life’s cartoons
and scary ghost stories.
