By Mike Barthel
At eighteen months old, Alina uttered her first prophecy. The young seer gripped her father’s cheeks and shouted: “Ba ba bababa. Ma! Ma ma! Ba baba mama.”
“You got it, Alina!” her father replied in a bright voice. He didn’t understand. If he had, he would’ve taken a different tone.
Even at that age, Alina knew she was a genuine oracle, capable of seeing the future as it truly was. But, like her father, she didn’t understand what she was saying. In hopes that someone else would, she kept speaking her prophecies aloud. Giving them flight.
A few weeks after her third birthday, Alina woke from her nap with a cry. Her mother, who had been reading the news and worrying, though not in any conscious way, felt a rush of resentment.
“I dream about mysteries,” Alina said when her mother came to get her.
Her mother sighed. “Let’s go outside.”
At the playground, Alina quickly found her favorite perch, a concrete pylon painted like a polka-dotted mushroom—fly amanita, which some people eat and believe they see the future. She gripped the far edge, then hoisted her lower half up, legs flailing in the air until her bare knees found purchase on the rough red-and-white surface.
She wiped her hands and exclaimed: “Bell ring! You hide from…long man?” She lost steam at the end, struggling to find the right words for what she saw.
This caused her mother to worry, though not in any conscious way. If she could have nailed down the thoughts, they might have gone: Was Alina just using her scattershot vocabulary to describe a Paw Patrol subplot, or was she being secretly abused at daycare? Instead, she just felt bad. She stomped off to the edge of the playground, giving a curt nod to the other mom, the one whose name she could never remember. One of the blonde ones.
Alina climbed down from the mushroom and ran toward the play structure built to look like a tree fort. She bounced on the faux-log bridge, arms flapping like she meant to fly.
During her sleepless nights, Alina’s mother worried her daughter was anxious—which she was not, not yet—and that she was anxious because her parents were anxious. But what was the source of this dread; why were they so on edge in the midst of their bright, soft life? But since no such explanation was possible, Alina had created a story. A horror story. Her parents must be haunted. Cursed. Poisoned.
Or so Alina’s mother imagined. In truth, Alina thought her parents were either the best thing in the world or the cruelest monsters she’d ever known. She did not believe them to have thoughts of their own. Or feelings.
Underneath the fort, Alina ran into a boy in an elephant romper and said, “Firefighters not stop tall fire in boot.” She meant “Beirut.” The boy laughed and flapped his arms, so she laughed and flapped her arms, too. It felt good.
She didn’t know there were only so many prophecies she could say. By her fourth birthday, they would be exhausted, and any sentences that henceforth escaped her lips (“I love you,” say, or “I can’t do anything right”) would be only as true or as false as she made them to be.
But right now, on the playground, she wouldn’t stop, couldn’t stop. She relished the feeling of truth emerging from her, the sound, the taste. She turned her face towards the sun and considered sending another prophecy into the soft blue sky. To be caught by some uncomprehending ear, or to pass through this world unheard, vibrating and then still.
Her mother swooped in, the unconscious worry peaking, to take Alina home. Alina screamed and screamed at the cruelest monster she’d ever known. But then she spied a dandelion whose white fronds still clung to its stalk, and wriggled free to puff them into the air. The seeds dragged their parachutes unerringly toward the earth. Her mother trudged behind, looking at her phone.
By the time the shelter-in-place alert sounded—by the time the tall man, fleeing the police, had put three bullets in the tree fort’s slide—she and Alina were already back in the lobby of their apartment building. Alina toddled up to the front desk and waved to Ms. Alfred.
“Sooooooo much. And then…no more!” Alina punctuated this with a clap and a giggle.
“Hi, baby,” Ms. Katrina said. “Are you having a good day?”
“Yes I am, Alina said. And though it was not a prophecy, it was, nevertheless, the truth.
I honestly had a difficult time with this story. The prophesies are so vague and not clarified that they didn’t add to the story. I found the story confusing and without a plot or meaning.
I so loved this story! Imagine the struggle of a toddler with so many words of truth tucked in her brain & unable to communicate it all to her world. Wow! I felt the anxiety here. I especially loved this — “But right now, on the playground, she wouldn’t stop, couldn’t stop. She relished the feeling of truth emerging from her, the sound, the taste. She turned her face towards the sun and considered sending another prophecy into the soft blue sky. To be caught by some uncomprehending ear, or to pass through this world unheard, vibrating and then still.”
You’ve captured a child’s view, a mother’s view, and life caring for the very young. Well done!
I LOVED this story. What a wonderful idea, to write from the mind of a child unable to articulate the visions while being fully aware of them, and the reaction of the adult world around her. Fascinating and beautifully written.
This is inventive and truthful. Thanks. I like it very much.
Loved it, Mike.
Love this but can’t in my mind separate Alina from my image of Lucy.
Relatable concept. The limit was intriguing, but only induced a sense of disappointment, opportunity lost. I think there is room to make it do work as an overt conflict device. It seems to build a duality between involuntary truth telling (determinism) and intentional lies or truth (will). I think that theme can be clarified and touched on a bit more often. Example: The introduction to her prophecy played more like a suspense or horror opening, when there was no great threat or damage to the family later in the tale. So that is a place of audience misdirection, where instead the duality of oracular truth vs self determination could be built up more.
Aside from exhausting the undefined prophesy limit (which was not clear until later paragraphs), the fires in Beirut comment seems to have no closure or connection to the story. Same with the ‘baba mama’ one. Is there a prophesy that could directly explore the family characters? Possibly ‘tell’ a future enacted expression of some family dynamic?
There mother’s non-existent internal monologue is witty. However, if it was chopped, the resonance of her emotional descriptions with the audience can become stronger, it would free up word space to flesh out toddler prophecy consequences or dynamics, and, finally, the subtle implication that her mother’s UNSPOKEN “anxiety” (which made them leave the park before danger erupted) was her own prophetic gift, maintained and wielded effectively may jump off the page if it is truly unspoken by even the narrator. ‘Womanly mysteries’ and all. The last point is a bit at odds with the rule of limited prophesies, but I could construe a scenario where mother was a naturally quiter child than her daughter.
An intriguing ‘coming of age’/loss of innocence concept. Prophetic truth as innocence. This seems to be more played out in adolescent protagonists, but toddlerhood is the first great war on human nature by nice society. So why not a baby journey? Very cool.