Grace McCleen - The Land of Decoration

MY ROOM WAS in darkness. I said: “Are You there?” but no one answered. I went to the window and drew back the curtains and the moon came in. It was silvering the factory and the electricity and making the train tracks gleam like glue left by a snail.

I looked out at the town at the television aerials and chimneys and rooftops, the telegraph wires going up and down the valley, and above it all the dark mountain, darker still against the white of the moon, and it was funny, but for the first time it all looked quite beautiful, like Brother Michaels had said, and in a few minutes it would be gone.

I turned back to the room. I pushed aside masts and forks and garden fences, branches and thatches, strands of rainbow, wires that birds used to sit on, white horses from the top of waves, wisps of cloud. The magic had gone now; the sun looked just like a wire cage, the sea a mirror, the fields like pieces of fabric, the hills papier mâché and bark.

I wondered what Father would do with the Land of Decoration. He would probably put it out in black bags for the garbagemen. The egg-carton hills would be paper, the toffee-barrel house a new toffee barrel or a tin can or cup, the milk-carton houses more milk cartons and other things when they were empty, the feathers and straws might become real birds’ nests again, the wood and heather would become new trees and new heather, the stones would one day become mountains again, the shells become sand, the sand glass, and the glass perhaps a new mirror.

Nearly everything would be changed, but one or two things would remain what I had made them. Perhaps the barrel with the sail—perhaps it really would find its way to sea and the tiny fisherman see real birds overhead, taste real spray on his lips, and real breezes would make his cheeks pink. Perhaps some very small pieces of cloth, some of the glitter, or the smallest of beads, might stay right here in this room under the floorboards, in nooks and crannies with the spiders and mice.

Then I remembered that there wouldn’t be a room, and Father wouldn’t do anything with the Land of Decoration: and the Land of Decoration wouldn’t be anywhere—or, rather, it would be everywhere, because it would be real.

I fetched a chair and put it in the space I had cleared. I got onto the chair. “Thirty-one minutes,” said a voice.

“There You are,” I said. Then I stopped. “It is You, isn’t it?”

God said: “Who else would it be?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “You sounded strange for a minute.”

“Strange how?”

“Different,” I said. “Well—sort of like me .”

“Don’t be silly,” God said. “You’re you and I’m Me.”

“Yes,” I said. “Sorry. A lot has happened tonight.”

I balanced on tiptoes and unscrewed the lightbulb.

“Twenty-nine and a half minutes,” said God. “And counting.”

I put the bulb on the chair and it rolled back and forth.

“Quietly!” said God. “We don’t want interruptions.”

I unscrewed the hot-air-balloon lamp shade and put it on the chair too, but it fell onto the floor.

“Great,” said God. “That’s just great.”

I tested the light cord. I got down and fetched my school tie. I got back up and tied one end of the tie to the cord above the light fitting and tugged it. I tied a loop in the other end of my tie and loosened it. I put my head through the loop. The material felt soft next to my skin. I expect it wondered where my collar was.

The room looked strange from the ceiling: like a box, smaller than it had ever seemed before. I wondered if I had already stepped off the chair, because my arms and legs felt like they were falling, but they weren’t, and I wasn’t, I said to myself; there was a rushing in my ears, as if the tie was tightening. But it isn’t, I said to myself. Not yet.

I looked at the Land of Decoration. “It was so good in the beginning,” I said. “Now I think it would have been better if I’d never made it at all.”

“We all make mistakes,” said God.

“What did You say?”

“I said: We all make mistakes,” God said.

“We?” I loosened the tie.

“You, Me—everyone.”

I was beginning to feel sick. “Are You sure about this?” I said.

“Oh yes,” said God. “One hundred percent. Twenty-three and a half minutes.”

There was a sound in the room like a creature panting. “What’s that noise?” I said.

“It’s you,” said God. “Can’t you breathe more quietly?”

“No,” I said.

My knees were behaving strangely now, as if they wanted to fall forward, though I was afraid of that more than anything, and my left leg wouldn’t stop tapping the chair.

I took one foot off the chair and held on to the tie. I closed my eyes and lifted the other foot off too. Darkness throbbed and jumped in front of me. Colored lights and whistling sounds filled my head. I put both feet back on the chair and hung on to the tie and my body was wet, as if I had been running, and my teeth were chattering.

“Nineteen minutes, nine seconds,” said God.

My foot slipped. Something hot dribbled down my legs. I swallowed and was trying hard not to cry.

“Nineteen minutes and two seconds,” said God.

Then I said: “You know what I wish?”

God laughed. “I’d think carefully before you make another wish. The last ones haven’t turned out very well.”

“I wish You would go away and never come back.”

“What?” said God.

I hung on to the tie. “I would like,” I said, “to never speak to You again.”

God said: “You don’t mean that.”

“Yes,” I said, “I do.”

“Be careful what you say,” said God.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “You can’t do anything to me now.”

God said: “You’ll be sorry.”

“No,” I said, and took my hands away from the tie. “I already am.”

IT GOT QUIET in the room. I took a deep breath, but I couldn’t kick away the chair.

I tried to think what Father would do if he were me and I knew he would try to think of a good thought. So I tried. I thought how good it was now that God had gone away, like it was in the beginning. But it wasn’t like it was in the beginning, because now I knew nothing I had made was good after all.

I tried again. I thought how in a few minutes Armageddon really would be here and all the bad things would be washed away and the world would be how it was always intended to be. But then I remembered all the people God would destroy, and pretty soon I couldn’t think about that either.

Then I looked down and caught sight of one of the little people I had made to begin with. An arm had come away from the body, but the face was still the same. And that is when I had the best thought I have ever had in my life. I thought of Father going into the Land of Decoration and meeting my mother again.

Father would see Mother standing a little way from him. Something about her would make him go toward her. Then she would turn round and he would not be able to believe it. But he would have to believe it, because it would be true. They would go walking together, leaving a trail in the grass, sometimes my mother’s hand would be in Father’s and sometimes his arm would be around her shoulders. And all the streets and all the rivers and all the names and places of this world, all the people that were and are and will be, would be nothing to this moment.

I knew it was possible, I knew they really could be together if I could just step forward. But I still couldn’t do it. And then I realized it wasn’t that Father didn’t love me but that I didn’t love Father enough. And when I thought that, the world split apart.