Over dinner we decided the four-year-old in the red Popeye shirt was the devil. It was somehow more than just he was a rotten little shit.
A blonde three-year-old suddenly threw her head back, a shriek raising from her gaping mouth like a swarming column of bees.
"It was him. That devil boy. He spun her and hurt her."
I hadn't witnessed that. What I had seen was a girl suddenly possessed. A last frame from an old horror show, rather than the lazy Sunday afternoon of beer and song I had come to expect.
I had been distracted. My ex sat eight feet in front of me and I tried not to judge him. Not judge like "you dirty bastard." Rather the soul killing variety of "who looks happier."
Parents rushed out to the stage to sweep the blonde queen back to their hive. She returned moments later, all smiles again.
The children danced like a trailer from a seventies movie. One in six actually gyrated to the beat.
And then .... I pulled my mother's credit card from the depths of my utilitarian pouch I use as a purse. I handed it off to a friend, my mouth falling slack jawed and open as if a sorcerer had conjured her in front of me.
"Look at the expiration date."
It couldn't be more recent than 2007, but I was somehow certain without looking it said the 1980's.
That same pouch carried a bent and forgotten piece of 35mm color negative film. Three dogs, all Mike, and, in negative form, an unidentifiable cat. Squirreled away like treasure talismans. I couldn't begin to fathom when I might have done that. Yet, I use that bag frequently. Surely I would have reached in that particular pouch.
My life is now charmed. The universe whispers in my ears and I try to learn from her lessons.
I slipped the talismans back where I found them.
I await my next astonishment.
