Delusions of Grandeur

Delusions of Grandeur
Judy sat on her bed, quietly, legs crossed like a Buddhist monk waiting for enlightenment. Her intention was not enlightenment, however, but rather just the blind hope that she could find an ounce of solace at this late hour. This house, or more precisely her room, was where she had spent the first nine years of her life. The age of the house far surpassed that of Judy’s. So old was it, in fact, that the poorly insulated wooden walls of the house would pop and creak suddenly in the nite, scaring her up to her attentive and meditative position. When Judy finally relaxed enough to gain a few hours of sleep, he contorted herself into a tight ball in the middle of the bed, somewhat resembling a fetus in the womb. She said it “felt better that way.”
Sometimes, Judy would breathe very shallow and very slow. Her mother had warned her about what happens when little girls don’t get enough oxygen to their brain. Judy almost liked the idea of being able to separate her brain from the rest of her body in that weird, metaphysical sort of way. It was during these periods of detachment that Judy was at her finest. Everything seemed clearer and easier to handle. Things that sounded absurd or just unmentionable at three in the afternoon made perfect sense to her as she sat almost breathlessly on her bed at one in the morning. Judy’s point of focus was her toy shelf that contained the basic essentials of the overly contemplative third grader. There were mainly the leather bound books that her grandmother passed down to her. Judy hadn’t read but one of these books, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The rest she knew she wouldn’t be able to understand much less enjoy. She enjoyed simply looking at them. On the shelf also rested about two-dozen empty spiral notebooks that she was determined to fill with poetry she would ultimately never end up writing by the end of her short life. She also had a box of raisins and a dirty sock nestled snuggly between a beautiful, nearly immaculate copy of The Catcher in the Rye, perfect binding with yellow and odorous pages, and an old, beat up copy of A Separate Peace, pages falling out, most likely from force exerted by the reader.
After about twenty minutes, Judy began to breathe normally and laid down into her customary sleeping position. She felt better than she had before her mental excursion and ended up sleeping the best nite of sleep she had experienced in recent memory.

When she woke up to her Sunday morning about six hours later, Judy felt refreshed and vibrant. The sun was shining with a radiance she had not been subjected to since she was thrown into the world from her mother’s screaming belly and into the arms of many interested and probing doctors. She could hear the birds communicating to other birds in nearby trees, saying God knows what but saying it with beauty and without reservation. The dog that lived next door, who she had named Copernicus, was not barking incessantly as he usually did. Instead, he was rolling around on the ground, letting the grass tickle his flea-infested back and allowing the sun to fall upon his plump belly, comforting him while he wallowed. She could smell her mother’s cinnamon rolls baking in the oven downstairs. She could hear the sound of her father opening his Sunday morning newspaper loudly and vigorously, trying to trudge through that overbearing load of misinformation and denial. To Judy, this morning was surpassing any preconceived notion of perfection and sublimity. She knew that when she walked downstairs, the cinnamon rolls would melt in her mouth with unusual speed and brilliance, causing her to make longing vowel sounds and then hug her mother in appreciation. Judy would then proceed over to her father, her mouth still full of warm dough and sugar. She would fly into his lap lovingly and he would read her the comics. Judy would laugh and kiss her father on his unshaven cheek, littering his scratchy wasteland of a face with frosty goodness.
After her domestic love dosage Judy would put on her Sunday best. Church was not where she prepared to attend, however. She was going to go next door and roll around in the filth with Copernicus. She was going to talk to the birds, telling them how lovely they are and how their presence breathes life into those who happen to let their open ears intercept their majestic song. Most of all, however, she was going to bask in all of the sun’s glory, ignoring all she had been told by both teachers and parents alike about skin cancer. To her, feeling its warmth was more important than anything contained between four walls, a wood-paneled floor and a ceiling. She could look directly into the sun if she wanted to, and no pain would befall her. The sun could supernova at that very moment and she alone would be spared.

Judy got out of bed, already adorned in her pajamas, and prepared to meet the morning with quick steps and a smile. She ran down the stairs, nearly tripping at the bottom. Something was wrong, though. The smell of cinnamon rolls was no longer evident. The all-too-customary aroma had been replaced by the smell of furniture polish. Her mother had been cleaning.
She ran to her mother and latched onto her leg at the thigh, like all good children do. “Can I please have a cinnamon roll, mother?” she asked, tears already filling her eyes.
“No,” replied her mother shortly and unequivocally. “Bill and I ate them already. You woke up too late. It is almost nine. You usually get up around eight. This couldn’t be helped. Now go get ready for church.”
“I’m not going to church,” Judy said. “Where’s father? Where is the newspaper? Where are the comics?!”
“Bill was called into work today. He’ll be back in a few hours. It couldn’t be helped. Go get ready for church. Oh, and by the way, haven’t Bill and I told you to stop doing that?”
“Stop doing what?”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
“No, I don’t mother.”
Judy’s mother made eye contact with her daughter for the first time in days and smiled. “I’m talking about the fact that you keep calling us your mother and father. You seem to forget, Judy, that we adopted you, even though that was more than eight years ago. Have you forgotten that already? Have you?”
“No. I remember.”
Judy fell and hit the floor hard. She hadn’t passed out, but rather stopped listening to what her brain was telling her to do. Instead of walking back upstairs to get dressed she was going to lie there and cry.
“What are you doing, Judy?” Her pseudo-mother was getting impatient.
Judy stood up and looked tearfully into her eyes. “Why are you doing this to me? Why am I her with you, mother, when I could be somewhere else, enjoying the sun and the air? Why is it that I am Judy and no one else in the world is? Why is it that the way that I see things is probably different from the way everyone else sees them? If we all see things differently because of how old we are, or if we are a boy or a girl, or if our parents are mean to us, how is it that anyone of us can be right about what is truly out there? How can I be sure if that is the sun shining out there? What if I’m playing tricks on myself?” Judy was now crying openly and shamefully. Her mother had her back to her, however, not paying attention to the child standing defiantly behind her. She was baking Bill a birthday cake.
“Judy, what on earth are you talking about? Nine year olds shouldn’t be worrying about that garbage. When do you get the time to think of such things, if I may ask?”
Judy sat herself on the ground, similar to the position she was sitting in the previous nite on her bed. She began to speak calmly and assertively. Judy was confident for the first time in her young life.
“I think about them at nite after you send me to my room. I try to sleep, but the noises keep me up. I try to sleep but I can’t. So I sit up and I think.”
“Are you doing that thing where you stop breathing, Judy?”
“Yes.”
“You shouldn’t do that.”
“I don’t care.” Judy waited a moment and then continued. “I’m not going to church today. I want to play outside today. Are you going to let me or not?”
“Why should I let you? You haven’t been a very good girl since you’ve been living with us. You need to go to church. It will help fix whatever is wrong with you. Besides, it’s been raining all morning. Why would you want to go play outside in this horrible weather?”
“What are you talking about? The sun was shining when I woke up.”
“Go outside and see for yourself.”
Judy walked to the front door and opened it. Rain was pouring from the heavens and off her roof, landing harshly on the family car and on her mailbox. It must have been raining all morning because the streets were already filling up with water. Copernicus was nowhere to be found and no birds were present, much less singing. Her beautiful sun was hidden behind masses upon masses of dark clouds. They could be there all day.
“Go get ready for church or you’ll be sorry, Judy.”
Judy did not respond but rather ran past her mother and then up the stairs, tripping on the twelfth, sixteenth, eighteenth and twenty-first steps. She shut her door, fell, and hit the floor hard once again. She had passed out this time and would not be awakened until her fake mother and fake father entered her room two hours later with angry faces and a belt.