Just a short tale today. I've written of this little girl in my fiction. But this one's true. I've got a few galleries left: I'll finish by the weekend. I love being here, it's a joy to be in your galleries again! The tale's for whoever wants to see it---if you don't have time, it's fine. Thanks for all your love and visits, they mean the world to me. A fine wednesday to all, Mark * * * When we were 6, Bonnie and I took long walks. Bonnie was wise. You'll say, "she was just six": But she was wise. She knew things. She was mostly Native American, and she wasn't like other kids: She told me trees talked and understood what we said, even when we weren't 'looking'. That animals and insects were people---she spoke of raccoon people, and squirrel people---and that the sun was a "little man". Sometimes I thought she was crazy, but she spoke with such conviction, so convinced of everything she said, that I decided she was wise. We used to sneak through peoples' yards to get home. They didn't like it. Sometimes we upturned their garbage cans, and the owners got furious: The cans went "bang!" and you could hear the owners running to their door: Boom, boom, boom, BOOM! It terrified me. I thought they'd catch me, put me in jail---without trial---and send me to Alcatraz. Or stick me in a chain gang. (I'd seen it in films. I pictured myself in striped shirts and sweating to death.) Mind you, I always set the garbage can upright---desperate to appease---but I'd leave garbage behind, strewn all over the ground. Bonnie---as we raced for the forest---told me "leave the garbage on the ground: It's food for the animals!" The owners didn't agree: They'd come bounding out, threatening to call our parents (who I was sure would put me in a chain gang): But Bonnie would whisper: "I'm the wind!" And she'd whoosh away. And I just stood there, and the owners would cry, "one of these days---" (One time, I felt so guilty after knocking over a garbage can, I ran home and screamed: "I knocked over a garbage can and left the garbage all over the ground and I've done it like 20 times and I'm sorry---don't be mad!" ((I cried hysterically.)) "What???" my father asked. "I'm doomed!" I cried: "Don't let them put me in prison! I don't wanna go to prison!" My father had no clue what I was talking about. But I wept hysterically. Then I thought: How much can they do to me if I confess? Confession wipes out everything---right? "Well!" my father said, stunned: "Let this teach you: Don't knock over other peoples' garbage cans..." Well, that was fast! I made it. I wasn't put away...) One day, Bonnie talked to a tree. She said that if you whisper your secrets into this tree---this tree, this particular huge tree---all your worries would go away. She walked to it, petted it, whispered to it, then put her head in one of its openings---one of those cave-like openings you see in trees, where you figure elves live along with tiny animals. She got very serious all of a sudden; and she whispered and wailed a story to it. I couldn't hear the words, but it was heavy. Suddenly my friend---who was a sister to me (we did everything together)---had a huge secret. I was no longer 'close'. What was she wailing? About a long-lost sibling? A mother who'd died suddenly? Maybe she was calling an ancestor, I didn't know... When she came out, she looked grave (5 year olds can look grave), and said: "I can't talk anymore." And she went home. I felt abandoned. I was hurt. I learned, that day, that sometimes even people you love need to be alone: But I was sad. She walked slowly, head bowed, until she disappeared into the scruffy bushes by the train tracks. Later, some friends said they saw Bonnie "walking down the tracks, forever". She got home soon enough. But soon after---about a week---Bonnie disappeared. She never came home. I'd heard of children disappearing, but never anyone I knew. My parents, knowing how close I was to her, said: "They'll find her, son, don't worry..." But I knew they wouldn't. She never came back. In a few months, her family moved to a new town. Yet still, for months after, I thought maybe Bonnie would come back to me---showing up in my bedroom where I often lay at night, listening to the trees rustle outside my window (we lived next to a small, gorgeous, dark, mysterious forest). Each time I heard the wind, I thought it was her, coming back to take me with her. She sang beautiful Native songs, I played the piano: We'd become a duet. We'd tour. I made plans. But she never came back...And I never realized that she had something inside her that must've hurt deeply; or which called her and took her away. Maybe she was abducted---I didn't know. And I never found out if she returned, either: Her parents moved way away when I was 9 or 10. I never heard about her since. Yet I've wanted to say, even now: Bonnie: You made a big difference in my life. I miss you... One more story. In winter, we'd run through the prairie grass---which could grow 10 feet tall, and obliterate the sun---and she'd always run ahead of me, seeming to know every blade of grass while I banged into the stalks like I was wearing blindfolds. (Prairie grass is thick.) In winter, those stalks make loud cuh-rackkkkkks. Like bamboo, only brittle, like glass. And the leaves on the ground would crunch like you were crushing glass shards on a concrete floor. And everywhere you walked, you stepped on frozen leaves, fruits, dead insects, stalks, sheaths, you name it. Crunch, crunch, crunch... And Bonnie was up ahead---in thick moccasins (which her parents hated, but she changed into them every time we met)---navigating like she knew every inch of this place. Then she'd sit, right on those sharp sheaths: "Sit!" she'd shout: "Sit!" I'd sit. (Crunch.) We sat there until the sun set, watching the sky through a sea of god-like stalks, as the sky turned pink, then crimson, then black. You could smell wood burning from distant homes: that sweet, pungent smell. And the only sound, nestled in this cathedral of old grasses, was the quiet crackling of frozen stalks bending in the wind. Like the walls of a chapel, they isolated you, enveloped you, made you feel in a sacred space. And we'd be there a long time. This was my sweetest memory of her. Some of you have said that I've met some amazing people. But the thing is, I think we all meet amazing people. I'm not being glib: If we look hard enough, we'll find amazing stories. I've put Bonnie into a number of my tales because she just doesn't die...And, each autumn, when exquisite colors overwhelmed our town and the pungent, sweet odors of burning leaves filled the air, I think of Bonnie. Maybe she resurfaced. Maybe she has a family of her own---with grandkids! And I think, if only we could talk just once...You know the old joke? Two babies in a baby ward are taken to their prospective homes. Years later---at the ends of their lives---they wind up in the same hospital-room, just as before. And one person turns to the other, and whispers: "So---how was it?" If only we could meet some of the magic people who've long disappeared from our lives, and whisper: "So, how was it? What have you done?" Maybe next time I walk through those grasses, Bonnie'll appear from behind a stalk---now a dignified old and glowing soul---and tell me more secrets of the amazing world she knew and loved. I remember this each autumn, and wanted to share it with you now... * * *