Grace McCleen - The Land of Decoration

Father raised his eyebrows and closed his eyes.

I said: “Perhaps you can ponder too much.”

And Father said he thought you probably could.

But most of the time I don’t say much to Father and he doesn’t say much to me, and this is the biggest problem we have, because all the time we are not saying things, the air is filled with the things we could. I am always trying to hook one of these things down, but they are usually out of reach.

4) Father is often angry with me. This is because there is a list of things he approves of, which must be done a certain way, such as:

a) speaking (not mumbling)

b) sitting (not slouching)

c) walking (not running)

d) thinking (not daydreaming)

e) saving (not spending)

and an even longer list that must not be done at all, such as:

a) crying

b) playing with food

c) leaving food

d) running around (including hopscotch in the hall, which breaks another rule too; see f)

e) scuffing shoes

f) noise in general

g) leaving doors open

h) not paying attention

And sooner or later I am bound to do one and forget to do the other.

Sometimes, though, I don’t know why Father is angry with me. Once I asked him what I had done wrong.

He said: “You?”

“Yes.”

“What makes you say that?”

“You always seem cross.”

“ Me? ”

“Yes.”

“ I’m not cross.”

“Oh.”

“You’d know if I was cross!”

“That’s all right, then.”

He said: “Cross indeed!” And he was angrier than he had been to start with.

5) But worse, much worse than Father being cross, much worse than Father not talking to me or not wanting to look at me or not wanting to touch me, is when he is sad.

Sometimes when I was younger, I used to come downstairs at night to get a drink and the light would be on under the kitchen door. I would see Father through the glass panel, sitting at the table, not doing anything, just sitting there. I stood by the door waiting for him to move, and if he did it was like stepping into warm water. If he didn’t I would go back to bed with a pain in my chest and promise to be better and wait for the light to come.

That was when I thought I could make Father love me, but I don’t anymore. Because the reason he doesn’t happened a long time ago and I can’t do anything about it now, even though without me it wouldn’t have happened at all.

WHEN I HAD finished writing in my journal, I put it under the loose floorboard beneath my bed. I would have to hide it for now. Until Father came to his senses and saw what was staring him in the face.

I suddenly wondered what Brother Michaels would say if he knew what had happened, and I wished I could tell him how right he had been, that I could make things happen just like he said.

I got into bed. My head still felt hot and I was feeling even stronger than before. I could see myself in bed as if I wasn’t in my body. I’d fainted once and it felt similar. I was thinking about Father and the argument, thinking how surprised he would be when he finally did realize I could perform miracles, but it was as if it had all happened to someone else now, as if the little body lying in the bed and the house and our street and the town and the whole universe was pouring into my head and my head was big enough for it all, but it went on getting hotter and hotter, and it was all so strange I just lay back and let it happen. Then I heard something.

“So, you can make it snow,” said a voice. “What else can you do, I wonder?” Something shot up my spine and into my hair, and it felt like something inside me had melted.

“Hello?” I said, but no one answered. I waited.

Then someone sighed. I was sure of it.

I sat up in bed. I was breathing very hard. I pulled the blankets around me and took a deep breath. “Who’s there?” I whispered.

Everything was silent again. Then the voice said: “I said: ‘What else can you do?’”

I gasped. “Who are you?” I said.

“Now, there’s a question.”

I opened my mouth. I shut it again. “Where did you come from?”

“There’s another.”

I said: “I want to know—”

“You already do,” said the voice. It sounded quite close.

I shook my head. “Where are you?” I said.

“I’m all around,” the voice said. “Inside things and outside them too. I was, and am, and will be.”

Then my heart beat once, very hard, and I said: “You’re God, aren’t You?”

“Shh,” said the voice.

I swallowed. “Can You see me?”

“Of course,” said God. “I’ve been watching you for some time. You could be very useful to Me.”

I sat up. “What do You mean?”

“Well,” said God, “you’ve got a great imagination. I need someone like you to be My Instrument.”

“Your Instrument?” I said.

“Yes.”

“What for?”

“Miracles, that sort of thing.”

I put my hands over my face and then I took them away. I said: “I knew I was meant to do something important!”

“Shh!” said God. “Not so loud. We don’t want to wake your father.” He paused. “But there’s one condition: You have to have complete faith; you have to be prepared to do whatever I ask, no doubting, no grumbling, no asking why.”

“OK,” I said. “I won’t.”

“You mean it?”

“Yes!”

“All right,” said God. “We’ll talk later. Right now I have to get on with some other things.”

“What other things?”

“Well, this is a busy time in heaven right now. Four horsemen are straining at the bit, there’re some winds that are very restless, and there are a lot of locusts that are getting under everyone’s feet. Oh, and some seals that have to be opened. In the meantime, no blabbing, all right?”

“Can I carry on using my powers?”

“Yes,” said God. “I’ll let you get used to them for a bit.”

“Do you think I could make things happen to people and animals as well?”

God said: “Judith, it’s all a matter of faith.”

“The mustard seed!”

“Precisely.”

“I won’t say any more to Father.”

“Very wise.”

“But he’ll believe me in the end?”

“Yes.”

“Because I’ll do more and more things and he’ll have to see. He will have to see I am doing something special.”

“No doubt about it,” said God.

Then God went wherever it is that He goes and I lay down and thought two things. The first was that I had been silly to expect Father to understand about the miracles but I didn’t have to worry because it would all come right in the end.

The second thought was strange. It was that this had been waiting to happen to me, and thinking that made me happier than anything I had thought before in my whole life. The miracles had been waiting all this time, and so had I. And now the waiting was over, and things could begin.

FATHER SAYS THAT God is the voice in every Christian’s head helping him to do the right thing. He says that the Devil tells the Christian to do the exact opposite. This means we must be careful which of them we listen to. Up until yesterday, I hadn’t heard God’s voice but I had been talking to Him. I think I must have been saving up things to say, because for a long time I didn’t talk at all.

WHEN I WAS small, Father took me to see a doctor because I didn’t do anything but stare straight in front of me. There is a photograph of me taken by Father at that time. It’s a warm day and I am sitting beneath the cherry tree he planted for Mother in the front garden. The grass is littered with blossoms. I am wearing a blue T-shirt and shorts that come down to my knees. There is a scab on the right one. My legs stick straight out in front of me. My hands are in my lap.