What fun it would be to ride on the spider's back - wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! – paragliding off the curtain pole, a trail of spun dewdrops in our wake I wonder, do spiders throw their legs A K I M B OOOOOOOOOOOOO as they plummet towards the radiator? Makebelieve, makebelieve, where else shall I go? I could… fall up high, high in the sky, to float on a boat - a skyboat! – riding the crests of cloud-waves, hands for oars, scoop up rainpebbles, send them skimming across the wide blue yonder… Perhaps one of them might splish onto your forehead. You might wipe it off with the tip of a finger, hold it there, a bead of light. Pop! Now the light is set free again, to be everywhere! I might… alight on a lilypad in the drumming rain, take shelter beneath the frog’s bellows, Ribbit, ribbit, ribBIT! he croaks to a percussion of dragonflywings! Mmmm, the sweet stench of pondslime tickleweeds licking at the secret gaps between my toes where even thoughts don’t reach... Maybe I’ll… dive like a mermaid make mischief flapping my tail against the hulls of great, groaning metal whales say 'shhhhhhhh!' to the octopus as we wriggle backwards into his lair and watch, and listen, and… POUNCE! I expect I will meet Neptune there, out patrolling with his enormous trident I would shake his cool clammy hand, braid his saltsticky hair as the fishes blow bubbles and stare and stare plip-plop. Plip. Plop… Oh, look! There go the decorator crabs, scuttling by, arguing over wallpaper patterns. Perhaps then I will… get most splendidly lost in the greenvelvet woods, having foolishly taken directions from a quite-real, and therefore duplicitous fairy, go acorn-scrumping, get chased through the grass by a furious, chuntertrilling squirrel, running, running, like a stream coursing over pebbles! Hehe, I might creep up behind an owl and SCREECH. Really loudly. To make him jump. Although… when an owl is surprised, how would one know? And while imaginary time is running amok the clock befuddled, hereandthere all muddled, I shall probably build a time machine! clunkwhirwhoosh, back to my enchanted childhood garden where I will bury my nose in the pillowy black soil beneath the sagely nodding peony bush and boop snoots with the mole who was my friend… and - assuming I can get there-and-back before it’s time to put the dinner on - I could land my machine on red-eyed old Mars! Surely the Rovers up there are tired, a bit lonely, and would like to sit by my side and point at the stars… And while travelling back from there, to here I will make a wish which is this: to curl up beside you, drape my legs over yours rest my head against your chest place my ear to your heart feel the warmth of your armpit against the nape of my neck lace my fingers around yours a fingerchurch! a small, sacred place big enough only for you, and me… Makebelieve. Makebelieve! Oh, it's GOOD to be home...
Thank you so much for reading! If you’d like to support my work, all shares and restacks are hugely appreciated :) Or if you feel moved to do so, you can buy me a coffee pod for my Lavazzo coffee-maker, to encourage me to get up at the crack of dawn and make more time for writing ;)
This had me on such an imagination adventure journey Lizzie. I felt like a child reading this! It's beautiful and so visceral. Someone needs to work with you and make this a picture book. I'd want it in my library! Gorgeous. Just gorgeous and the best way to open my morning at 8am! Please keep the work coming. xx
Absolutely fantastic. You had me on riding a spider.