the birthday girl . . .
She wakes up that morning and she knows that something is different. She looks at all the beautiful colours in her box of paper and she weeps. She curses her silly, clumsy fingers that cannot even wipe away a wayward tear without leaving tell-tale smears. Fingers that drop (and break) very precious things every single day. She loves those colours so.
Paper that has been collected over years. Paper that, even though bare of script, mark, symbol and letter, murmur tale after tale in many wonderful languages. She looks around at all the rainbow jumble. Each failed attempt lies at her feet, like a crumpled cracker crown from a few days previous. She weeps for all that she has wanted to be, for the words that run around inside her all day long but simply cannot fly, for the aeroplane that her paper wants to become. The birthday girl weeps for her paper aeroplane. And at that very moment, she lifts up her pen. The birthday girl writes.