For Christmas, I receive a five-year diary, complete with lock and key. I am unable to find the courage to write in the white leather book until the week of Easter, though I often open the lock to softly flip through the gilt-edged pages. Years later, I find the diary in a basket in my parents’ attic.
Day 1, April 14, 1974: I take my Bible to church today to find that my sister has drawn a picture of herself in the back pages. It looks like this.
Day 2: My grandmother gave me the Bible as a present, so I try to erase the picture. My sister must have pressed hard because she’s still there. I tear the page trying.
Day 3: Why is her head so big?
Day 4: Her head is bigger than all of Goliath. I measured.
Day 5: It’s bigger than the Red Sea.
Day 6: This morning, my sister comes into my room carrying that jumbo pencil. I tell her to move on because there’s no room at this inn. She doesn’t get my joke but leaves anyway. A few minutes later, I hear my other sister screaming.
Day 7: I don’t know how she found my Bible, but I go to look at that head again and my sister has drawn a bunny next to it. Or a cat with long ears.
sunrise
the hatching
of a robin’s egg
Bio: Darlene O’Dell
