Life’s Lessons
“I hate bugs,” Rebecca said after scaring another one away from her leg as she rested in the sun. “I am obviously not a flower; so what’s their excuse for landing on me all the time?”
“I can’t tell you,” her mother said. “Maybe you just smell so sweet?”
Rebecca gave her an exasperated look. “No, Mom. I’m not that sweet.”
“Of course you are,” her mother said before closing her eyes and lying down on the beach towel that was set up in the middle of their backyard.
Rebecca sighed and looked around for any more bugs trying to crawl up her legs. Sweet or no, she wondered angrily why the bumblebees and butterflies avoided her while the other creepy crawlies were so abundant. She swatted a fly off her arm.
The flowers were bright in the sun and wilting just a bit. Her mother’s ice tea was lying in a bottle on the side of the towel, now very warm from sitting in the sun so long. The book she was reading was lying underneath it, nestled in the grass. The cover was nondescript with a boring block of blue and a large title: War and Peace.
“Mom?” Rebecca asked. Her mother sat up and squinted at her. “Why are you reading a book on war and peace when you could just get that on the news?”
Her mother smiled. “This is more artfully told than the news.”
“But still,” Rebecca persisted.
“Why do you read all those books about insects when you won’t even let once land on your leg?”
“Mom!”
“Well? Perhaps, you like reading about insects much better than real ones. I like reading about war and peace much better than real situations.”
“I suppose that’s fair,” Rebecca said.
“I hope so,” her mother said lying back on the towel and smiling, “because that’s the way it is.”
This entry was posted on Monday, August 25th, 2008 at 2:53 pm and is filed under Fiction Prose, Realistic Fiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.