The Cracked Globe stories

The Cracked Globe
The cracked globe hung always at the front of the classroom, faded, marked marred and waiting for a small finger to trace the patterns, check the marks, look far across the ocean for the two small red places that were where the stories were made.  A long curve marked the centre of her world but was only on the map, never quite right it seemed that all of her vast country should so far from either the big crack that marked the top half or the long mark from which the numbers started.  One finger on the  pen marked x that the teacher said marked her home place and no other part of her small hand could reach the place of stories, right on one line, or even to that other x where the Queen lived.
She knew about the Queen and the bearded man whose picture hung beside her.   Kings, that was King George but he seemed to strange for a little girl to know but his wife was Queen Mary, the lady with the crown that sat on top of a great pile of hair just like her grandmother’s in far away Ontario.  I wonder if the queen has to comb her long hair every morning, a hundred strokes, Mother had said it took to keep that long hair shining.  How she longed for long coiled curls or braids like the picture books but mother said that all hurt too much, and so each month her bangs were cut straight across above her eyes and squared at the back.  Her thumb and little finger stretched from her xed spot to the far edge of her country.  One day she thought, one day I’ll ride and ride, and sail and see all the streets my dad told me in London.  One day I’ll go and see the horses and carriages that drive through London.  London is right there.  I know because the teacher drew a tiny crown, right there in the very centre.  She tried again, her longest ever stretch but her little finger landed deep in the ocean, deep in the blue part.  She began to dream that her finger had drowned, so swam it safe to shore.
The cracked globe had a lot of sticky marks, and tiny holes, and the biggest crack was the equator, teacher said.  He had stuck flags in each country. Flags were interesting; some were white with long green stripes; some had stars, and some had little flags in the corners of bigger flags.  She knew that the little flag was the Union Jack and that all the pink bits belonged to the King-who-lived-in-Buckingham Palace and to all of us who lived in pink countries.  It made her feel very important to belong in the King’s big empire yet still her hand would not reach further.  “My dad”, she would be able to say, “My dad came from there”.  Her finger on the England “  My dad came from there and once he saw the Old Queen ride in her carriage right down his street.”
The biggest crack in the cracked globe ran right around the centre.  Far below and on the further side she found another big pink place.  “ Where is that?  One of the big boys laughed, “That is Australia, down below, you can’t get there from here because you would be sure to fall into that big hole and disappear.”
The Child  stood on the high platform beside the railroad track that lead to Hudsons Bay and the Arctic but today the train was going the other way.  She stretched her fingers thinking of the globe and knew the biggest ocean was where the ships waited for all the people she could see through the coach window.  People sitting at white tables holding silver knives and forks, the waiter in black tie, white shirt, a big napkin over his arm, bowing and asking.  One day, one day she knew she’d ride out west and see the tide wash strange waters to a rocky shore.  One day, she dreamed she’d sweep grandly aboard.  One day the waiter would bow before her and say,” M’lady  what may I bring for you today?  I hear the trifle’s very nice, and turtle soup’s on the menu.”
“O my!”,  she’d have to say, “no turtle for me.  I could not eat such a tiny friend.  Beside’s  D’s turtle ran  away.  This might be him.  May I please have rice pudding and cream with a strawberry on top?”  He’d go away and come back with her pudding on a silver tray.
“Thank you, thank you for being so kind.”
She reached her finger across the sea and touched on China, tapped all the little islands as she went and thought about the things the teacher said.  How once upon a far off time the boys wore pigtails braided down their backs, and girls wee feet were made so small by binding them.  How glad she was that all those stories were from long ago perhaps even longer than when her friend Wing Chew who kept the café in town was a baby.  Wing Chew came from Shanghai, her daddy said, and left a little girl like you at home.  He came here a long time ago, Dad told her working on the railroad when they were building the Pas line.
Wing Chew broke his leg and could not work for big money on the rails so he set up the café and learned to cook the western way:  bacon and eggs, liver and onions, oatmeal with lumps, and toasted bread with marmalade.  She wondered why no one ate with chop sticks in Wing Chew’s café and wondered too if the little girl in China missed her dad.  “Mei Sue’s a grown up lady now and would not know her dad if he walked down the street.”   She cried and knew she was a lucky little girl to live in a pink country and knew she’s always have to be extra polite when Wing Chew asked if she wanted a piece of his tough old pie.
On day, she knew, she’d not have to be the baby any more when the girls played house under the poplars.  The girls had a table made from a box and six stools from the winter logs and she knew how to set the table, and how to spread the cloth properly, not all sloppy as Peggy did but no one would let her.  She had to sit on the high chair and be baby just because she was the youngest and didn’t have any big brothers or sisters to defend her. She hated recess except on the days it was too cold for most of the big kids to walk to school and much too cold for the little ones to make snowballs.  The dry snow fell apart even in her warm mittens.  Those days she could play with the globe.

The Gazebo

The Gazebo
September 30th, 2006
I cannot dwell behind stone walls

or in the silent cell

but here in the garden I have found

a space, a green surround

a rose encircled gazebo

bound by a bench where friends may sit and gossip for a while

or where a friendly winter jay may chatter

or the red squirrel come to tell his tale, or beg some crumb

of wisdom from the tray

Please drop in, I find no pain

in being interrupted

Good morning, dear, I am Grandma here

by Cronelogical

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