Snivelling child

Snivelling child

Why do you love the chimney stacks more than me?

I am your sister Dean-Dean

And you should love me as such

Myriam wrote this in the margins of her exercise book at her school as her younger brother wept in front of her

She let twenty years pass and was sitting at her writing desk watching her brother walking around the chimney stacks which were firmly marooned in their large garden

Her brother was weaving ribbons of many colours around and between the various stacks

He called it art

Myriam called it Dean-Dean’s folly

Their children A & D were picking up the odd strands of ribbon that their father had discarded and were making rosettes which they were selling to passers-by

They had named their business Prison Sky and their mother had designed a logo made entirely from slate grey feathers

From her window Miriam could see all the ribbons that her brother had woven around the chimneys of the village

Even the huge factory chimney was not immune having been covered in a garland of red and yellow ribbons

Miriam considered this strange as the factory made chocolate and had told her brother so

They agreed to differ

She was illustrating a book which she called Patchwork K & K which she sold page by page to itinerants who called at the door of the strawberry house

Her brother had become a pilot the previous year and they often flew together naked looking at the various chimneys of Suchsuchdo and the surrounding areas

Dean-Dean planned to cover the county of Toptopshire in blue ribbons using red only to denote the exit roads

He called it art

Myriam called it Dean-Dean’s folly

Both children often saw their parent’s airplane high in the sky playing hide and seek with the summer clouds

Occasionally an orange ribbon would cascade towards them

And they would break into song as they made rosettes

To sell to the passers-by

Who would wear them to sporting events in nearby towns

Myriam let another ten years pass and both A & D were at large universities in far off cities. They both wanted to become artists like their famous father who was away from his wife in the snow covered foothills of a mountain range where he was preparing an exhibition of chimney stacks covered in ribbons of three colours

She was still illustrating many books but no longer sold them page by page to passing itinerants but gave them to strawberries and other soft fruits as part of a nationwide initiative proposed by a cow

Snivelling fruit

Snivelling fruit

Why do you love my illustrations more than me?

She would sing as she sat in the fields on the edge of the village with the various soft fruits that remained dumbuninterestedanddull

Occasionally she would look into the skies and hope that the airplane high in the clouds was piloted by Dean-Dean and that a ribbon bright in colour would fall towards her so that she could decorate the trees and bushes in a saturated pink in honour of his return