Storytime by Jeannie Morgenstern

This was the story of the girl with long hair and eyes the color of a winter sun. One might think it innocent, harmless. But this was the tale I hated most of all. 

If there was one thing that I despised, it was the nighttime ritual of storytelling. I appreciated humanity’s ability to create, to perpetuate, to oppress, to systemize, to compartmentalize, to identify, to embrace. Without those things, I would not be here. But I hated story time in its pure form because, above all else, it showcased humanity’s ability to fear. Storytime was what made me become feared on Sycamore Trail, and I did not want to be feared. Fear was something different, it was blinding. I could understand why some would resent me, Femininity, me, the one who made you look in the mirror and abhor what you saw… But I did not want to be feared. Worked with, worked around, forgotten, moved beyond, hated, forgiven. But not feared.

As much as I wanted them to stop, stories proliferated freely, without shame. There was one story in particular that lived on Sycamore Trail that seduced everyone: it was the story Cecile’s mother would tell every night, once having learned it from the woman who lived next door, who learned it from the woman who lived next door to her. Whispers of a girl that had once lived in house number 4 spun in each home, beating with a life given by the breath of repetitive parents and starry-eyed children. 

After turning 13, it was said that her eyes burned with the color of a violent purple storm. She cried often. She cried consistently, and they said it was an act of self-indulgence. She cried a thousand tears every time a leaf fell. Yellow fingers of maples and oak on her walk home brushed her shoulders, and at this sensation she cried so hard the night sky began to cry as well, as if the world wanted to join her and her underwater emotions. I want to mention, these tears were not necessarily sad. But not one storyteller said that part of the story, they only mentioned that the tears fell, heavy, blue, and otherworldly because no one knew such hunger, such pain, could be part of the world in which they also lived. These tears lasted from the equinox to the solstice. At night, she hid, feeding the darkness with her tears. Her mother would want to come into her room, to ensure her daughter was okay, but the girl kept the door locked. With a blotched face, she cried and feared the day her mother would touch her with soapy hands. There was something about them that made her skin crawl. Even just conjuring the image in her mind, she was overburdened with a hot feeling of distaste, the visceral unpleasantness that comes from something bubbling, greasy, lukewarm. Her breath hovered and she swallowed a wave of nausea. Something about the soap, the soft s-sound, the invariable smell of lemons that were not ripe and still overripe. She hid from her mother consistently.

Cecile’s mother’s  favorite part of the story was when she said, “the girl’s mother’s hands were for folding dishtowels, for washing dishes, for gardening and getting dirt in the smallest crevices of her palms. For pushing stubs of candles into a cake. For holding hands and dancing. She would grip her daughter whenever she could, and make her dance with her. Her daughter would cry, sometimes loudly, sometimes softy. But her mother was unafraid.” I myself enjoyed this part.

Cecile’s mother would continue, telling of how, once, the girl’s mother had managed to grip her hands in her wrinkled ones, and pull her into a dance. This took place in the kitchen, with the trembling infancy of an October morning pouring in from the outside. Something about the death of a luscious, green summer, the emergence of an autumn fire, overwhelmed the girl and she would already be breaking with emotion, overflowing (they blamed me for that overflow, but I wanted to say—I never wanted to put boundaries on you people!). She loved it and drank it in, but her heart would consistently leak melancholy. She loved the autumn leaves, so she would step on them, grind them down with her feet.  Cecile found herself doing the same thing, reveling in walking through a yellowy, fragmented powder after school. When Cecile realized what she had done, she started walking on the other street, the one bald without any trees, without any leaves. She kept her hair short. But still, her birthday loomed. I followed her, seeing everything.

Although the neighbors were looking forward to autumn, they also became afraid, for the wailing that this young girl emitted made them think something terrible would occur, that they would be dragged out of their homes by a girl with long hair who had a sensitivity to soap. Who cried often, had long hair. As the story was passed around, sampled, shared, their fear grew. The girl must have been cursed. Cursed by me. She was afraid of soap. She cried often. Her hair was long. She must have been cursed. By me, Femininity, by me, who they imagined as a conglomeration of fruit, flowers, the inside of things but not the outside—the sensitive, craggy bits of life that no one appreciated.  This was the story that was passed down to Cecile.

Cecile dreamt of this girl in the story. She was afraid of her—afraid of me— and imagined her, her sobs, her hair, her tears, her dress, her legs, her face, all long, all reflecting something Cecile thought was me. She did not know where the dream started, and the girl began. She imagined her skin pristine, even though she did not like soap. Cecile was 12 years old. She feared the day she would turn 13, afraid to become the girl in the story. Learning this broke my heart, but I could do nothing. Did these people not know that I was to come whether they liked it or not? And these stories would do nothing: when her mother, one day, found Cecile gasping for breath in their red bathtub, covered in lukewarm water meant to kill, she decided to tell Cecile it was just a tale. Nothing to fear. She wouldn’t become like her, god forbid, emotional, wet, dripping, afraid. But Cecile never forgot the story. I never forgot, either.  

It was November 12th. Cecile’s birthday was tomorrow. She fell asleep, and dreamt of the kitchen, of the girl dancing. She fell asleep with tears on her cheeks, afraid. She woke up with the sound of the girl’s howling in her ears, and there were streaks on her body, tails from silver tears that burned… It was her 13th birthday. November 13th. A day where the blue sky shone brilliantly between the yellow-orange shells of something willing to die. Cecile looked at that tree outside of her window, and trembled. Tears spilled over her lids and she knew there was an ocean inside of her. I longed to sit next to her. To bend down and whisper in her ear, “Don’t you know the story? Don’t you think there is something beautiful in her vulnerability? Don’t you think her face was flushed red? Don’t you think there is clarity in that heat?”
But instead, I sat there, watching the tears fall.