There was a creek behind the house, and there she dropped the pillow and the blanket and the little stuffed tiger into the water and watched them wash downstream until the world closed in over them. She let go of the things that had happened and the ones that she’d hoped for that hadn’t. She left and grew up.
She ran down the sidewalk on all fours, roaring. She didn’t stop for anything. A beetle got in her way and was splashed onto the pavement. Bubblegum and tar stuck to her palms and knees. She roared past two of the neighbourhood boys and they laughed at her from the lawn. She felt shame burn in her but she did not stop.
She remembered excitement, excitement so deep that it kept her from sleeping. She remembered jealousy, so rabid that it made her wish harm on people who owed her nothing. She remembered fear, so terrible that it could only be forgotten for moments at a time. She could label all of these feelings and put pins through them like a catalogue of butterflies.
She used to cry at weddings, as a little girl. She saw the shining eyes under the lifted veil and thought that the bride was crying because she had lost everything: adventures and backyards and sleepovers and staying up all night to read and her mother’s arms whenever she needed them. That, she assumed, was why everyone was crying.
She tried to do things, to see if she could feel something again. She tried to have her heart broken. She tried to win a competition. She tried to go to school and become interested in politics. She tried self-righteousness. She toyed with the idea of religion.
Finally, she went back to the empty house and threw out her old things, the tools of childhood. She watched them float downstream and wondered what she’d lost.
word by Charlotte Joyce Kidd
colour by Randee Crudo
“Randee Crudo is a Montreal based artist born in 1986. Randee has been developing a distinct style over the past six years in which she experiments with the fluidity of the paint and the interplay of colours.
While having always been a creative person, it was only in 2009, when Randee graduated in Art History from McGill University that she decided to embark on her own creative journey. With no formal training, Randee has taken a different route, using non-traditional methods and non-traditional tools to create her paintings.
Randee was drawn immediately to the abstract. The ability to express herself freely, without any limitations on her technique, style or choice of colour is what allows Randee to keep growing and creating as an artist.”
wordandcolour 