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Fiction Bedtime

“Where I come from, pigs could fly before humans”

Those tiny bundles of joy, my dearest grandchildren stopped crying immediately. At ages 7 and 6, it is expected that they have little quarrels. Ones that always end in tears and snot and broken toys. But every time I say that sentence, they stop crying. 

After blinking out some tears and rubbing some snot on his sleeve, my older one said, “Daddad, daddad, tell me the story?”

The story, ahh. I start with that sentence, but every time I tell them a made-up story to teach them a lesson. But sibling love is too important for a fairy tale. 

“If I tell you my story, will you stop crying and say sorry to your sister?”

All I got was a head bob, but that was enough for me. I turned to my younger grandchild. 

“Are you going to say sorry to your brother?”

She quickly turned around and walked briskly for her room, sounding a pitter-patter of little footsteps. She jumped for the doorknob and brought it down a little loudly. After rummaging through what I was sure of to be toys and other knickknacks lying on the floor, she came back carrying something behind her back. She faced her brother and presented a small teddy bear apple. Or is it called a Teddy Apple? It is a cotton stuffed green apple. 

“I sorry big bwother. take this?”

She nudged the apple against his chest and smiled a would-be toothy grin. Would be because two teeth had fallen out. 

The elder brother looked away from her and put his hands inside his pants. I always tried to stop that habit of his. I assumed he got it from watching the older kids play around the neighborhood. Those punks always strut about with their hands in their pockets. Hands are supposed to be used, not put away. I always think of people who don’t have hands when I see people like that. Now the littlest punk in the world wants to be ‘cool’ as they call it these days. But he doesn’t have pockets. So his creative solution was to put those grubby hands directly in his pants.

“Eddie, Eddie, take those hands out of your pants you little rascal,” I said with just a bit of sternness in my voice. And what do you say to your sister?”

Eddie reluctantly pulled his hands out and made sure to pout heavily when he accepted her apology present. Although his frown disappeared when he hugged it. 

“I’m sorry too, Merry. Thank you for this apple, I will tra- tre- trezure it,” he said as he pretended to eat it. 

“Silly Eddie,” Merry giggled, “that's a toy. And its a FRUIT”

“Fruit! Eww,” he replied as they both laughed. 

I let out a sigh. Crisis averted.

“What do you want to do for dinner? Your mom is gonna come soon, so we better make something before she brings out the day before yesterday’s leftover.” 

The kids were looking at each other puzzled as I was laughing at my joke. 

“Daddad,” they said in almost perfect unison.

“Yes, little ones?”

“Story time, you promised,” Eddie said.

“Oh, you still remember what I said? I was hoping I could go to bed.”

“No, no. no, tell us your story!,” they said as they banged their chubby fists against my legs. 

“Fine, fine. Alright? Now gather around on the floor.”

They let out joyous shouts of ‘yays’ and ‘wahoo's’ while I waited for them to quiet down. 

“Long, long, time ago, when this old man wasn’t old, nor a man, I lived on a large island…”

I looked down to see if they were paying attention. Their eyes were wide open with anticipation. My old heart was warmed when I saw that. Not many times do younger people care to hear stories of the old times.

“There was a rigid class system. Made it hard to live there. Think of it hard to get rich if your poor,” I clarified as I saw their looks of confusion. 

“The island was a tributary to a large nation. That means we have to send gifts to powerful people every year to make them happy.”

“Like the apple?” Merry asked innocently.

“I wish it was like the apple, but it's not. It was people. People were sent as slaves to the nation. It was horrible for our people.”

“What is a slave?”

“Eddie, imagine this. I ask you to clean your room, and you HAVE to do it. And in the end, you get no candy. But if I ask Merry to clean her room, she doesn’t have to do it. But if she does, she gets candy. Doesn’t seem fair does it?”

He nodded furiously. 

“There is much more horrible stuff, but you are kids, let's not get into that.”

After ignoring complaints and claims such as “I can take it, I am a big boy/girl”, I continued. 

“The way it worked was like this. The firstborn child gets to live on the island. The second-born child is sent to the big nation as a warrior, and the third and after child are sent as a slave. You might wonder why not the parents do not ask the crow for the third child, but they do it because they get food in exchange for their children. So poor parents that wanted grain and milk, even if it meant their kids would suffer, asked the crow for children. And the crow gave them. My parents like that. I hated them for it.”

I paused for dramatic effect and to make sure the kids were keeping up. I wouldn’t want my audience falling asleep like that. 

“The first child the crow gave was my older brother. Like Eddie is to you Merry. His name was Inruk. The crow’s second gift was me, Daddad. And the third one was my little sister, Shamala. She was like what Merry is to you, Eddie. I loved both of them. But when I turned 12, I was sent to be a warrior.”

“Wow, you were so cool!” they squealed, “did you defeat your enemies and rescue the princess?”

“I wish,” I replied solemnly. I tried to be cheerful, but remembering that was saddening. 

“I didn’t want to be a warrior. But I was forced. In that place, I couldn’t make my dream come true. I always wanted to be a farmer, but I couldn’t. And my sister had it worse. She became a slave as soon as she turned 10. The owner would have beaten, starved, dehumanized her.”

I looked down and saw their puzzled faces. I gently blinked some of my tears and continued. 

“But one day I got a letter. It said my brother died.”

Both kids gasped and screamed. They started crying and hugged each other. I silently was relieved when I saw their grief. No one, except me, would mourn Inruk. But even though he died over 60 years ago, and they never got to know him, they still shed tears. I cried with them, and in between sobs, I went on.

“The tribute system –”, I sniffed, “worked oddly. When a firstborn son dies before age 19, it is as if they never existed. It was believed they were never supposed to be born. Merry, it's like if Eddie disappeared and you were never allowed to think about him.”

She teared up even more, while Eddie was agape in horror. 

“Were you sad Daddad? You weren’t allowed to think of Bigger Daddad?” asked a hesitant Eddie. 

“I was very sad Eddie, but as I told you, it was as if he never lived. When there is no first child, the children coming after go up in rank. I became firstborn, while my sister became secondborn. I am ashamed, but a part of me was glad I could rescue my sister from slavery. I thought that even being a part of the military was better than being a slave. So I tried to search for her. I copied the letter and sent it everywhere in the district. Most of the slaves went to the city where I was stationed because it had a lot of farms. Slaves worked there from morning to evening. I went from one plantation to another, trying to free her. When that didn't work, I searched in different districts. After that, I searched in different states. But even after all of that, I never found her. She must have died never knowing the fate of my brother, died being a slave. I was never there for her…”

I burst into tears and hid my face in my hands. I always wondered if she blamed us me and Inruk for making her a slave. What if she cursed us on the day she died. Even though I would understand if she hated us, I wanted to know. To know if she loved the brothers that forced her into slavery. But now, that will never happen.

My grandchildren saw my breakdown. But they didn't say a word. They just walked up to make and embraced me.  

I was in sorrow for the death of my siblings, and how I never got to experience their love. I don't ever want them to go through what I did.

I slowly returned the embrace and said, “promise me, Eddie, Merry, you will always be there for each other?” I almost begged. 

They slowly nodded. We slowly drifted to sleep, with them on my lap. I never finished my story, but I still hope its lesson will live with them. Just like it did with me.

September 24, 2022 03:21

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1 comment

J.M. De Jong
21:46 Sep 28, 2022

I loved the setup of storytime before bed :) And the descriptions of the children and how they talked was so easy to imagine, I could hear their little voices in my head. The story was so sad but it was cute to see how the children sympathized.

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