So what's your doll's name?" Boo asked me."Barbie," I said. "All their names are Barbie.""I see," she said. "Well, I'd think that would get boring, everyone having the samename."I thought about this, then said, "Okay, then her name is Sabrina.""Well, that's a very nice name," Boo said. I remember she was baking bread,kneading the doughbetween her thick fingers. "What does she do?""Do?" I said."Yes." She flipped the dough over and started in on it from the other side. "Whatdoes she do?""She goes out with Ken," I said."And what else?""She goes to parties," I said slowly. "And shopping.""Oh," Boo said, nodding."She can't work?""She doesn't have to work," I said."Why not?""Because she's Barbie.""I hate to tell you, Caitlin, but somebody has to make payments on that town houseand the Corvette,"Boo said cheerfully. "Unless Barbie has a lot of family money."I considered this while I put on Ken's pants.Boo started pushing the dough into a pan, smoothing it with her hand over the top."You know what Ithink, Caitlin?" Her voice was soft and nice, the way she always spoke to me."What?""I think your Barbie can go shopping, and go out with Ken, and also have aproductive and satisfyingcareer of her own." She opened the oven and slid in the bread pan, adjusting itsposition on the rack."But what can she do?" My mother didn't work and spent her time cleaning thehouse and going to PTA.I couldn't imagine Barbie, whose most casual outfit had sequins and go-go boots,doing s.uch things.Boo came over and plopped right down beside me. I always rememberher being on my level; she'd siton the edge of the sandbox, or lie across her bed with me and Cass as we listened tothe radio."Well," she said thoughtfully, picking up Ken and examining his perfect physique."What do you want todo when you grow up?"I remember this moment so well; I can still see Boo sitting there on the floor, cross-legged, holding myKen and watching my face as she tried to make me see that between my mother'sPTA and Boo'sstrange ways there was a middle ground that began here with my Barbie, Sab-rina,and led right to me."Well," I said abruptly, "I want to be in advertising." I have no idea where this camefrom."Advertising," Boo repeated, nodding. "Okay. Advertising it is. So Sabrina has to goto work every day,coming up with ideas for commercialsand things like that.""She works in an office," I went on. "Sometimes she has to work late.""Sure she does," Boo said. "It's hard to get ahead. Even if you're Barbie.""Because she wants to get promoted," I added. "So she can pay off the town house.And the Corvette.""Very responsible of her," Boo said."Can she be divorced?" I asked. "And famous for her commercialsand ideas?""She can be anything," Boo told me, and this is what I remember most, her freckledface so solemn, as ifshe knew she was the first to tell me. "And so can you.

Μια αιτία για τη δημιουργία νεύρωσης μπορεί να βρεθεί στο γεγονός ότι το παιδί έχει μια μητέρα που το αγαπάει μεν αλλά είναι υπερβολικά επιεικής ή αυταρχική απέναντί του κι έναν πατέρα αδύνατο και αδιάφορο. Σ'αυτήν την περίπτωση το παιδί μπορεί να παραμείνει προσκολλημένο σε μαι πρώιμη μητρική πρόσδεση και να εξελιχθεί σε ένα άτομο που εξαρτάται από τη μητέρα, νιώθει αδύναμο και έχει τις χαρακτηριστικές τάσεις του ανθρώπου-αποδέκτη που έχει ανάγκη να παίρνει, να προστατεύεται, να φροντίζεται, και που του λείπουν οι πατρικές ιδιότητες -πειθαρχία, ανεξαρτησία, ικανότητα να κατακτήσει τη ζωή μόνος του.

Billy sipped the last of his coffee from the mug and shut down his laptop. 1,000 words wasn’t great but it also wasn’t as bad as no words at all. It hadn’t exactly been a great couple of years and the royalties from his first few books were only going to hold out so much longer. Even if he didn’t have anything else to worry about there was always Sara to consider. Sara with her big blue eyes so like her mother’s. He sat for a moment longer thinking about his daughter and all they’d been through since Wendy had passed. Then he picked up his mug with a long sigh and carried it to the kitchen to rinse it in the sink. When he came back into his little living room and the quiet of 1 AM he wasn’t surprised to find her there over to the side of the bookshelf hovering close to the floor just beyond the couch. Wendy. Her eyes were cold and intense in death, angry and spiteful in a way he’d never seen them when she was alive. What once had been beautiful was now a horror and a threat, one that he’d known far too well in the years since she’d died. He and Sara both. He stood where he was looking at her as she glared up at him. Part of her smaller vantage point was caused by kneeling next to the shelf but he knew from the many times she’d walked or run through a room that death had also reduced her, made her no higher than 4 or 4 and half feet when she’d been 6 in life. She was like a child trapped there on the cusp between youth and coming adulthood. Crushed and broken down into a husk, an entity with no more love for them than a snake. Familiar tears stung his eyes but he blinked them away letting his anger and frustration rise in place of his grief.“Fuck you! What right do you have to be here? Why won’t you let Sara and I be? We loved you! We still love you!”She doesn’t respond, she never does. It’s as if she used up all of her words before she died and now all that’s left is the pain and the anger of her death. The empty lack of true life in her eyes leaves him cold. He doesn’t say anything else to her. It’s all a waste and he knows it. She frightens him as much as she makes him angry. Spite lives in every corner of her body and he’s reached his limit on how long he can see this perversion, this nightmare of what once meant so much to him.He walks past the bookshelf and through the doorway there. He and Sara’s rooms are up above. With an effort he resists the urge to look back down the hall to see if she’s followed. He refuses to treat his wife like a boogeyman no matter how much she has come to fit that mold. He can feel her eyes burning into him from somewhere back at the edge of the living room. The sensation leaves a cold trail of fear up his back as he walks the last four feet to the stairs and then up. He can hear her feet rush across the floor behind him and the rustle of fabric as she darts up the stairs after him. His pulse and his feet speed up as she grows closer but he’s never as fast as she is. Soon she slips up the steps under his foot shoving him aside as she crawls on her hands and feet through his legs and up the last few stairs above. As she passes through his legs, her presence never more clear than when it’s shoving right against him, he smells the clean and medicinal smells of the operating room and the cloying stench of blood. For a moment he’s back in that room with her, listening to her grunt and keen as she works so hard at pushing Sara into the world and then he’s back looking up at her as she slowly considers the landing and where to go from there. His voice is a whisper, one that pleads. “Wendy?

ഒരമ്മ പരാതിപ്പെടുകയായിരുന്നു : "രണ്ടു മക്കളുണ്ട് ആദ്യത്തേത് വെളുപ്പിന് എഴുന്നേറ്റു സ്കൂള്‍ ബസ്‌ വരുവോളം പഠിക്കുന്ന മൂത്തവന്‍, രണ്ടാമത്തവന്‍ ബസിന്റെ ഹോണ്‍ കേള്‍ക്കുമ്പോള്‍ മാത്രം പള്ളിയുറക്കം കഴിഞ്ഞു ഉണരുന്നവന്‍ , എന്നിട്ടും പള്ളികൂടത്തില്‍ പോകുന്ന പാങ്ങ് കാണുന്നില്ല . കുറച്ചു മീനെ വളര്‍ത്തുന്നുണ്ട് അവയ്ക്ക് ഞാഞ്ഞൂല് പിടിച്ചു കൊടുക്കണ്ടെ , കുറച്ചു കോഴി കുഞ്ഞുങ്ങളെ വളര്‍ത്തുന്നുണ്ട് , മുട്ടയിടീക്കണമെന്നുള്ള അത്യാഗ്രഹം കൊണ്ടൊന്നുമല്ല - നാട്ടിലെ ദരിദ്രരായ പരുന്തുകള്‍ക്ക് തീറ്റ കൊടുക്കാന്‍ വേണ്ടിയാണു.. ഒരു വല്യപ്പച്ചനുണ്ട്, അടുത്ത് പോയിരുന്നു പഴമ്പുരാണങ്ങള്‍ കേള്‍ക്കും. തോറ്റു!"അമ്മയെ ശകലം ബോധവല്‍കരിക്കാമെന്ന് തീരുമാനിച്ചു : അമ്മാ, ഇരുപതു വര്‍ഷങ്ങള്‍ക്ക് ശേഷം നിങ്ങളുടെ രണ്ടു കുഞ്ഞുങ്ങള്‍ക്ക് എന്ത് സംഭവിക്കുമെന്ന് ഗണിച്ചു നോക്കാതെ പറയാനാവും , ആദ്യത്തവന്‍ സിവില്‍ സര്‍വീസില്‍ തന്നെ ചെന്ന് ചാടും ; അവന്റെ അഭിലാഷം പോലെ ഏതെങ്കിലും ഒരു നഗരത്തില്‍ നിന്ന് അവന്‍ എല്ലാദിവസവും രാവിലെ നിങ്ങളെ കൃത്യമായി വിളിച്ച് കാര്യങ്ങള്‍ അന്വേഷിക്കുകേം ചെയ്യും, അപ്പോഴും അമ്മാ , ഏതെങ്കിലും ഒരു ഡോക്ടറിന്റെ മുറിക്കു പുറത്തു ടോക്കന്‍ എടുത്തു നിങ്ങളെയും ചേര്‍ത്തിരിക്കാന്‍ പോകുന്നത് ആ പോഴന്‍ മകനായിരിക്കും . കാലമാണ് കളയും വിളയും നിശ്ചയിക്കണ്ട ഏക ഏകകം