Bad Love - ebook

I.

Hi, my name is Ann. I’m almost six years old and I am a typical little girl. Well, not quite in fact, and the story I’m going to tell you will prove it. A love story. I know, you may say that I am just a little girl. A little girl who knows nothing about love. A little girl who knows nothing of beauty, fate, sins or loneliness. Yes, probably you’re right. Six-year-olds with shiny-fair pigtails usually know more about dolls’ clothing than about these adult things. True. But it doesn’t mean that it has to be like that this time. After all, I don’t think that being an adult makes you know much more about these things anyways. And I dare say that I am pretty much right. And I dare say that you know nothing about what you’re going to read here, even more so because this is a true story about bad love.II.

“You know, Daddy, when I grow up I’m going to become a writer. This is what I’ve decided. People become different people, don’t they? I mean, they stay who they were but what they do is different.”

“But sometimes it is a different walk of life than the one they dreamed of” said the girl’s father.

“Yes, I know, but sometimes it is exactly what they’ve dreamed of, isn’t it, Daddy?”

“Uhmm”.

“Mummy says that she wanted to become an engine driver. She wanted to drive huge locomotives. Almost as big as the other one.”

“Which one?”

“The one from the book we have in the kindergarten,” I explained.

“And?”

“Mummy didn’t become an engine driver. She didn’t even become a ticket inspector. She became a typist instead. And she can also sew clothes for my dolls.”

“Yes, she can. I’ve seen the checked shorts she sewed for your teddy bear.” said father.

“For Egon,” I specified. “I love when mummy sews, we can talk then. Once she said: “I am very happy, even though I am not an engine driver.” “How come?” I asked – “You don’t do what you wanted to do.” “But I do.”, she whispered in my ear and winked. “The locomotive is a noisy machine, a machine difficult to operate, exactly like the sewing machine. So I do operate a noisy and complicated machine.” “Maybe,” I said, without a conviction and added, “I am going to be a woman writer.” “A fire fighter?” was mummy’s surprising answer. “You need to know, Daddy, that mum’s ears are getting worse and worse. It’s probably because of the noise the sewing machine and the typewriter make. Sometimes you need to say something twice before she is able to hear what you said.” “No, Mummy. A woman writer.” I repeated – “That means a woman who writes books of stories for children. Like the one about the locomotive.”

“About the locomotive?” asked mummy with a smile. “Yes. As far as I know that woman writer was a man writer and his name was Julian Tuwim. I can’t really remember.” I admitted a bit embarrassed. “But this doesn’t stop me from becoming a woman writer.”

I laughed and hugged Mummy. You see, Daddy, little girls want to become doctors or teachers. Those brave ones dream of being flight attendants and of flying planes which can seat as many people as the strawberries I once ate.

“Strawberries?” he asked

“Yes”

“In grandma’s garden?” my father wanted to know.

“Yes.”

“And boys?”

”Well, boys, they want to be sheriffs,” I said with dislike, “firefighters or footballers. They want to play for very important prizes on very big pitches. So big that I can’t even imagine how much popcorn people eat there, and how much coke they drink. Both football and boys are boring. But if you listen to them long enough – I added – they may seem interesting.

“I see,” said father after a while.

“I wanted to become a woman writer. And I have become one. But, you know, Daddy, I think Mum was right when she said I should become a fighter.”

“Was she? Why?”

“Then I could have fought the shell that was growing around me.”

“But you didn’t and the shell has grown, is that right?”III.

As a writer I’m going to make up my stories at night. Then, I am going to write them and sell the books. They will have hard, colorful covers. They will wait for smiling children and their mothers in bookshops, full of shelves. I don’t know if writers do this but this is what I am going to do.

“I think that this is exactly what writers do,” said my father, earnestly.

“Do you?”

“Yes, of course,” he nodded his head and asked, “why don’t you tell me a story, Ann?”

“What about?”

“About whatever you want,” he answered with a grin.

“All right. Can it be a story about a dreams photographer?”

“Sounds interesting but you have to choose. It may as well be about a wizard if you want.”

“It will be about a dream,” I decided after a while.

“Perfect.”

I pondered for a while on what he just said: “There is something about it, although I don’t really know what, as I am still a very little girl. A girl with clear plans for the future, though. I haven’t learned what love, hope, fate, beauty or sin is yet but I’ll grow up, won’t I?”

“Of course, Ann,” agreed my father, “your plans are like a line.”

“The line which Mummy uses to hang the laundry on?”

“Similar,” he nodded, “Though it doesn’t really matter what kind of line. Life is about choosing. We follow a line to finally find what we are looking for. Everyone chooses his or her own way. ”

“I don’t know much about ways,” I admitted, “apart from the fact that not every one may be as good. But none of them are bad until we reach their end.”