Neta Shlein
raspberry squash
The everlasting debate of whether God exists was resolved
yesterday in the comfort of our playroom.
My son sat frowning amongst mountains of bags and toys, presents
for his seventh birthday. ‘I can't find this lego piece,' he muttered on the
verge of tears. I squinted my eyes, ‘which piece is that?' Marek poked his
little finger into the booklet, at a drawing of what looked like a bone. Mummy
should never fail to come to the rescue in cases like this, ‘I'll help you,
don't worry, we'll find it.'
Stage A began with scouring the room for free-floating lego
pieces, which I certainly remembered to have cleared earlier. I felt guilty
without charge knowing that I have seen this bone-shaped lego piece this morning
hoping against hope that I didn't throw it out.
Stage B was getting into the black bin outside and pulling out
two top bin bags, the ones I had put there this morning. Everything was wet with
rain but mummy - the knight in shining armour, or more rightly, a tired maid in
a throw-away robe - couldn't care less. Everything and anything for her little
boy to whom she had given birth only yesterday seven years ago. Bin bags were
opened in the corridor, releasing stench of half-eaten pizzas, ice-cream
wrappers and, yes, guilty as charged, hopefully, he didn't notice, cigarettes
smell. Nope, the bone wasn't there. Bags closed, back to the room.
In Stage C, a sudden, vivid memory crossed my exhausted brain.
There was a small round box involved. A whole chain of thought and decision
making unravelled lighting up the inside of my skull as clearly as the 60-watt
daylight energy-saving bulb lit up the playroom. I did think about slinging it
out, but it looked too much like something although not particularly a lego
piece, too big for that. I sat here and found that thing there; so then, I
must've put it…
Triumphantly, in the simplest of movements, I reached and pulled
it out of the small round box standing on the floor right beside us. ‘Here you
go, sweetie, your lego piece.'
He looked at me with no less than eternal admiration and said,
‘Mummy, you're God. And that means that God is real because here you are.'
I went out the room, and he kept chanting, ‘You are God, you are
God.'
Neta Shlein
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