Creation Myth – Claire

I am so small. I didn't know this for a long time, not until I found a map of the world. I found it all crumpled in the bottom of a drawer, my attention drawn by a faint rustling noise. In trying to find the source of the noise I opened the drawer and out crawled a cockroach, which had been dragging its smelly carcass across what turned out to be the map. I took the map to the table, hearing the satisfying crunch of the cockroach’s carapace underfoot.

On the map was a shape something like a rugby ball (Momma had told me about Rugby and many other things that were in yellowed newspapers covering the cellar floor). Within the ball were colours and many names. I spent the rest of the day studying the map and by night had decided that I would set off to find out where all the names were. At sunrise next day I packed some seeds, dried rabbit meat and a water pouch in an old hessian bag. Outside I kissed Mommas bleached bones where they hung on the wire fence and walked in the direction of the sun.

I walked all day, passing the fallen down houses and the rusting cars. The landscape was a collage of plastic, rubble and wiry shrubs where furniture rotted and granite work tops stood sentinel and unchanged. Mangy dogs lurked nearby, wary of the stick I carried but hopeful of a morsel. By nightfall I had gone as far as the edge of my known world. I slept under a fibreglass boat on a salt-dry riverbed. When I woke the next morning nothing looked familiar but I walked onwards, stopping only to eat some food, getting more and more footsore and weary.At night I dreamt that I may find another soul, perhaps a child younger than me, or an old man who could teach me things. But then I woke and there was just me, the dogs and cockroaches, not even Mommas bones for company.

On the 3rd day I realised that the map was a lie, just a silly drawing of a fantastical place. I had come so far and yet still had found nothing I had seen on the map, no signs bearing the names, no green forests or blue oceans. I turned to go back home where at least I knew how to live. The journey back seemed longer somehow, without hope and excitement about what I may discover. All I had found out was that I am so small, and I felt sad for the first time since Momma passed, because I wanted to be big again.

I arrived home on the 6th day and the first thing I did was set fire to the map with the lens from Momma’s glasses. I found a sheet of paper and drew a new world as I knew it. I made tiny creatures out of dust and water and covered the world in them to live at my bidding. And I was big again and it felt good. The next day I was so tired I just slept.