May 16: there's a little girl... (15 minutes)

...whose mother is tired of her and whose father is way too fond of her and she doesn't know what to do with herself so she wanders in the collection of trees at the dead end that everybody calls the woods even though most everybody knows they aren't really woods at all, just a sparse collection of trees with a lot of vines growing through them, entangling them, making them out to be more than they really are, and all the boys know the trail through the low lying brush and this little girl knows it too because this is where she goes when she's trying to make herself scarce, trying to get out of her mother's way and trying to stay way far away from her father especially on the days he gets off work early (like seven a.m. early) because he starts drinking beers because he worked all through the night and now that he's off work it's like the end of the day for him and even though this little girl might be eating breakfast, some toast or a bowl of dry cereal, her father is drinking beer, drinking till he comes down, drinking till he can finally get to sleep, and she doesn't want to be anywhere within reach when he's somewhere in the middle of the pile, when he's about halfway or closer to all the way to being able to sleep because that's when he gets so friendly and she'd rather he not be so friendly, she'd rather he be more like her mother in those times, wishes her mother and her father could just change places in those times, her father all sad and sleepy and her mother all noisy and anxious and a lot on her mind to say, or at the very least wishes she could change places with one of the boys she sees out in the woods, any one of 'em, any of the ones she follows far behind into the tangle of kudzu into the dark cool underpaths that lead out to the rain soaked dirty old mattress where they keep the magazines underneath with the pictures of the naked women, and they do things to each other like her father does to her but they seem to be so happy doing it, both of them, with smiles and chirps like birds and giggles, even -- giggles, even! -- but she figures she can't ever be like these boys so she picks wildflowers to give to her mother to try to make her smile like that, but they're the kinds of flowers with hollow stems that don't keep too well in a tight fist and they all droop by the time she puts them in a cup of water and her mother won't do anything but sigh at the state of the flowers and her father will only laugh at her if he is still awake and she will cry and he will make is move, gentle move, to her side, will hold her in his arms, purring like he means it, telling her things that should make her feel good, nice, and she betrays herself because she meant never to listen to his words again but she needs to hear these types of words more than just about anybody she imagines, and he's the only one saying them, and she falls under his spell once again.