Amber Night

Ever had one of those total recall moments where something triggers a long suppressed memory, causing a flashback of such intensity that you are literally knocked to the floor, where you thrash and scream like Linda Blair in a a 666th-level-of-hell-induced seizure?  Um…okay…neither have I?  Yeah…

This selection of Penny Arcade narrative art, however, brought back a particularly vivid childhood memory that I'd all but forgotten.  It was late February, and I was turning 5 or 6 or some post-linoleum-lizard age like that.  My mother could say for sure, but we really don't want to drag her into this, so you'll just have to work with me.  It was going to be the best birthday ever. (Well, I had a 1 in 5 or 6 chance of it being the best ever, anyway.  Not counting my zeroth birthday, which quite frankly sucked.) My dad had bought me a big ladybug piñata—I was totally into ladybugs so shut up mkay?—and I fell into the kind of love only a gap-toothed little girl can fall into with something made of paste and news print.  To be sure, it was an ill-fated love; the kind of modern day tragedy only James Cameron, a ship, a big-ass hunk of ice, and Leonardo Di Caprio could do justice.

The morning of the perfect little white middle-class girl's birthday party, I eagerly helped put out all the little ladybug napkins, plates, hats, party favors, and of course helped load the candy into Ladybug, and then helped my dad string it up so that it could "fly" in the tree in the backyard.  I did not at that point comprehend the fact that the whole idea behind this process was the lead-up to an unholy ceremony, culminating in my friends and family bludgeoning the fuck out of my sweet little Ladybug and engorging ourselves on her cellophane covered entrails.  I simply missed that memo.

I think my little Ladybug knew her life clock had turned red, yet stoically said nothing of the carousel to come, in order that our last moments together be happy ones.  She bravely accepted her role in the black mass as her fated purpose on this earth, perhaps looking forward to joining her friends Burro, Chili Pepper and most of all, el Toro, in that great fiesta in the sky, where there are no more beatings, and your sweet delicious insides stay inside of you for all eternity.  At least, that's what I remember seeing in those large, innocent crepe paper eyes.

I don't remember a lot of the details, but I do remember an initial sense of first confusion, and then smug satisfaction when I saw the other kids hit her with the plastic baseball bat, to no effect.  Ladybug was tough, and no plastic bat was going to break her.  Then there was the big kid, the one at every little kid's birthday party who is too old to be doing this shit, but is doing it anyway because his parents are too stupid to comprehend that their child towers over the other kids by roughly 4 feet.

His first mighty whack connected solidly.  Ladybug reeled from the blow, visibly dented.  I realized at that point that Ladybug was not, in fact, immune after all.  Death, I suddenly realized, would not come to Ladybug as she rocked her elderly carapice on the front porch of her patio home in the piñata retirement village.  No, death would come at the hands of a brace-faced brat, to the cheers and squeals of eager children, and it would come soon.  It was over after only a few more strikes from his mighty pre-teen guns. Then came the spray of candy, showering out in slow motion like glittery gore from the innards of my sweet Ladybug.  The memory ends there, but I'm told I was inconsolable for the rest of the day, and that nervous guests gave polite excuses to absent themselves.  I got a lot of that growing up, come to think of it.

We buried ladybug the next day.  It was a beautiful non-denominational funeral, held I suppose on a brisk early spring Colorado day.  Years later my brother, who is older than me by 4 years, would say that everyone had the worst time keeping a straight face.  I pointed out that it wouldn't have been necessary if they hadn't killed my fucking piñata.

I can't wait to do that to my kids.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 21st, 2006 at 3:19 pm and is filed under Amber's Brain, Main Page. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.