Parting of Water - Chapter 1

"I was going to give you a name, but I forgot to think that maybe you already have a name for yourself.”

She seems like a very considerate girl, to allow me the option to give myself a name. I don't think most people would give that sort of opportunity. I look at her, the girl's smiling face and loose black hair, almond brown eyes like stars. She is no older than eight, but already I can sense a million years inside her. This disconcerts me greatly, as little girls should be little girls, not small adults.

For the life of me I do not know why she is smiling. Her room is in serious disrepair, the windows muddy and the paint peeling. It is winter, and her blanket is thin. There is a lingering smell of mold and alcohol, the latter of which I suspect is from her father. A sudden rage is stirring within me, a rage that I swallow. I would like to have that smile last for as long as it can.

“If you have a name, tell me your name,” she says.

“Ulan,” I say to her, my mouth curving in return. “My name is Ulan.”

I have dug up this word in the trenches of her memory that I was able to grasp, of fleeting images and sounds. The word came from her mother, who talked in a language her daughter did not have time to learn, because the woman died too soon to teach her. The girl does not know the meaning of the word, but I do.

Rain. As the rhyme goes. Rain, rain, go away. Come again, another day.

I don't think she wants me to go away though, because she is now embracing my waist, smile larger than before, but mingled with tears. Her body is shaking, a slender, small willow. I find my arms around her, a wet choking in my throat.

“You're just like I imagined,” she says, overcome. And I am. She imagined me fifteen years old, significantly tall, with a calm face. Black hair and brown eyes too, just like her own. We look related, almost, but that was to be expected.

She wanted a big brother. And here I am, her invisible friend, hands entwined with strands of her hair, feeling her loneliness, like crashing water by the sea, thumping against my chest. Her weeping is growing louder. My weeping is just beginning.