Ella: Then
Ella likes things tiny. Tiny toy dishes, tiny dolls. She even wants her dad to be tiny. Like the Incredible Shrinking Man she saw on the Telly. He could live in her Lincoln Log Cabin.
Ella has a tiny pet. From her dad’s Ronson cigarette lighter, a flint. Red. Blowing the bead across the floor, she takes it for a walk. Till it falls in a canyon between floorboards. He won’t give her another.
Ella’s father does not shrink to a point of control. He smokes, stares, strokes, rolls her around. She goes tiny and red to disappear in cracks.
Photo credit: Beret Olsen
Lovely,Tara! And sad!