Out of Control

It’s Saturday afternoon and I’m four years old.  We’re sitting in our small lounge on art deco furniture.  I think it’s green, or the carpet is green and the radio cabinet is shiny and brown.  I hear Aunty M
olly laughing.  Mommy passes around cool drinks.  I can’t see her face… I never see her young face anymore but I fill in the picture I have of her from the photographs in her album. Round, full lipped; she would not have been wearing lipstick, being a member of Hashomair Hatzair youth movement, which values a plain, unpretentious style.  

There’s so much noise.  Uncle Buncy laughs his raucous laugh — he’s big; a mountain man and Aunty Molly sings: “Who’s my favorite little princess?”  And I’m running from lap to lap making faces and making everyone laugh because I’m just as cute as can be and Daddy picks me up by the arms and starts swinging me round and around and I shout: “More, Daddy, more!" wriggling like a wild piglet. 

Mommy shouts, “Josh – stop!  You’ll drop her!” But we don’t care as we go round and round and round.  And Uncle Buncy roars and Molly sings and claps and the world spins until suddenly, suddenly, I’m flying through the air.

 Then everything becomes slow and distorted like a flat tape recording, and the radio cabinet races to my head and arms and crashes into me and the world turns and turns and the lights go round and round and round…. 

And grownup eyes swim and Mommy screams, “I told you to stop!”  And Daddy shouts: “I’ve killed her, oh my God, I’ve killed her,” and aunty Molly brings water and holds my head up to make me drink but I choke and cry.

And there’s such a noise in my head as they shout at one another, Mommy screams that it’s Daddy’s fault and they say “concussed… conc…con…”  and I’m so tired and small and afraid. And I don’t understand at all why Daddy let go of my hand.