Here's my contribution to the book - a little semi-fictional piece I
wrote last year.

Rayna

MORNINGS

It is a cold morning as usual.  I am dressed in my school uniform,
blue blouse and skirt with a blue jersey.  Itch tights and socks on
under my clumsy, clunky school shoes.  Brown lace ups, heavy, with a
reinforced toe, so I wouldn't wear through them.  I hated those shoes,
so ugly and heavy to walk in.  But they were part of the school
uniform, part of the rules.  And I always have to follow the rules,
try to fit in, be like everyone else, no matter how uncomfortable
fitting in was for me, no matter how difficult and  exhausting it made
life.

It is three blocks to the bus stop.  So hard to walk there on these
cold mornings.  I can never feel my feet, they are numb, cold, bluey
purple all the time.  Like lumps of ice.

I hate this walk, too early, and I'm never fully awake, always wishing
for that extra half hour in bed.  My face is frozen and I can feel
every painful breath I take force its way icily through my lungs,
like sharp needles, and see the puffs of air I breathe out with every
step.  If I turn my head to the right, and look up over the main road
three streets away, I can see the Southern Alps covered in snow, a
sure indicator that the cold weather is going to last.  The mountains
are inverted ice cream cones, with the ice cream covering the
point.

Sometimes we get the snow down here when the weather gets really bad.
I think about snow as I walk, I don't like snow, it's freezing and
hard to walk in.  I have to stop thinking as I reach a slippery patch
of ice and concentrate on walking slowly and carefully, holding my
arms out so I don't slip and fall.  It hurts falling in the cold, and
the sores never heal quickly.

Only one block covered and three to go before I get to the bus stop.
I make up stories in my head as I walk to distract myself from the
pain in my feet, and to keep me from thinking about the day ahead.
The stories in my head are much more fun than my life, I pretend I
have lots of friends who all like me, and who fight to sit next to me
on the bus.  I always have someone to eat lunch with at school and in
some of them, there are boys or usually one boy who really likes me
and wants to go out with me.  I keep thinking that if I make up a
really good story, one day I'll just fall into it, and it will become
my reality, and the life I'm living now will be the daydream, not
real.

I've walked far enough to come level with the lollipop houses.  I call
them that because they are painted pink and blue and green, and they
all look exactly the same.  One of these three houses is where the
black dog lives, the one that leapt up at me that day.  I fell and
screamed and screamed and the man came and got the dog off me.  I
don't like walking past the house now, but I can't remember which
house exactly it is, all I can remember is that it is one of the three
lollipop houses.  So now before I get to the houses I cross the road
and walk half a block till I am past the houses, then I cross back to
be on the same side as the bus stop.

My feet are starting to drag and I can hear my mother's voice in my
head, `pick up your feet, Natalie, don't be lazy'.  It runs through my
head over and over.  Other people have songs stuck in their heads.  I
have my mother's voice.

Copyright 2001 Rayna Lamb