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The Starveling

(Ripped from a newscast in 1998 and inspired by the mother's words which are quoted at the end of the story)

When Amy felt the warm sun on her face and sensed the crimson glow of its light through her eyelids, she knew she was still alive. Last night the pain in her legs made it too hard to stand. She collapsed here by her dresser last night, after trying to cry out one last time. Her throat was sore and the breath wheezed in and out of her like sawdust on sandpaper. She tried to call out again, but the only sound of it echoed in her mind. She hadn't remembered falling asleep then or waking up now, just the awareness of the tender blush of sunlight on her cheeks and the blazing ball of red glowing behind her eyelids.

-

"Daddy. Daddy, Pick me up!", reaching up to her father with mittened hands outstretched, she begged to be lifted up to touch one of the enormous red Christmas ornaments that hung from the low branches of the tree. She could see it so clearly now, a large red ball dimpled on the bottom, satin sheen glowing in front of her, so big it filled her eyes completely till she felt lost in it. Her first remembrance of being alive seemed to be here at the age of three and a half when her father had taken her to Rockefeller Center to see the tree. Now she could even smell the pine spice of it which seemed now to mingle with the dust in the room, she coughed slightly and felt something warm at the side of her lips. Phantom limbs rose to wipe it away, but her arms stayed limp at her sides.

"Daddy, can we stay here? It's so pretty."

"What Princess?"

"Can we stay here Daddy? I don't want to go back home."

"I'm sorry princes, but Mommy would miss you and Daddy has to get back to go to work tonight."

"Please Daddy, I want to stay, please, please, pleeeease...," she did a little pirouette on the ice and fell on the skating rink. Her father finally coaxed her away with the promise of lunch at the cafe' across the street where she could sit and watch the tree while she ate.

A yellow taxi brought them back to the Port Authority where they boarded the 194 bus back to New Jersey. After a change in Newark they rode south, past the factories and big buildings of the cities. The land became spread out over the roadside. The further they traveled from the heat of the cities the deeper the snow became. Amy watched out the window as the highway sped past the bus, the occasional road sign swept by startling her once in a while. Finally the bus arrived in Spottswood and

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