Backwards

By Camryn Joyce

When I was seven years old, my great-grandmother died, and I started sleeping backwards on my bed. A nonsensical move to those who did not know me, and one that even my family didn’t quite grasp nor approve of. 

      When I was seven years old, my great-grandmother died, and I swore she lived in the star outside my window, the brightest of them all. In retrospect, I know it was only the North Star, but when I was seven years old, that was my great-grandmother and she had to be caught up to date.

     You notice several things when you sleep backwards on your bed. The first of those is the peculiar shape of the trees. They curve in all the wrong places, and when you grow up, you’ll realize it was because they had no choice, no space, and thus nothing to do but contort in that manner. But when you are seven years old, the way the trees form a plunger is almost magical.

        The second thing you notice is the coyotes, and the owl. The coyotes are fabled animals in your mind, and so the first time you see them your eyes practically bulge out of their sockets. You don’t think they are so scary, now that you’ve really seen them. The next morning, you neglect to tell your brother this realization. You can practically hear his voice daring you to join them the following night. The owl, too, is a surprising delight to you. It hoots, and hoots, and hoots all night long. 

     When I was seven years old, Great Grandma died and for the first time I noticed the plunger-tree, the coyotes and the owl. They became constants in my life, noble reminders of the life in which I lived.

     And when I was ten years old, my parents informed me as gently as they could manage that those constants were going away, and by the time I was eleven it was a fact. They would be gone, gone, gone.

     It had been mentioned before, this idea of moving away into the town. My brother was the quiet type and I suppose my family thought the move would make him more social. It did not. I don’t know what the goal was for me—I would talk to anyone within five feet of me with no inhibitions. Maybe they thought I was becoming too strange, with my talking to the stars and an unforeseen dedication to writing. I guess I won’t know for certain, but if the goal was to make me less strange, I fear they failed. 

    Well, at 11 years old I told my mom that I would be sleeping in a bed facing the stars at the new house. There were other losses, too, little things. Goodbye, trees. They don’t have you in town. Goodbye, coyotes, there’s no room for you on the busy streets. Goodbye, owl, you were lovely. But I would sacrifice it all, for my stars. 

     And then the day of moving came around. I stood there for a good minute, squinting up at the house. 

      “Aren’t you excited?” someone asked. I swallowed deep, maybe a bit more irritated than strictly necessary. Everyone knew I wasn’t excited. I’d made a great show of my despair. 

     “No,” I said. The person, whom I cannot recall now, led me through the halls, gasping at every turn like there was something magnificent about it all. I did not find it magnificent. We soon reached my room, an empty thing except for the mattress laying on the ground.

      Later, my mom would claim she’d designed the room for me and listened to my input. It was as clear to me then as it is now that was not the case. It was her room, really. I was just living in it. I don’t fault her for this, nor do I hold any resentment at all. I was a silly child filled with silly ideas and temporary loves. But at the time? I wanted my room to be as I wanted it. My mom is a smart lady, and she was smart not to let me design the room. 

     It was also a pretty thing, and I didn’t mind so long as I had my stars. The mattress was in the center of the room, and that was the first wrongness I noticed. But no matter, Mom knew I wanted my stars. Just a mistake from the moving company, that was all. So I dragged that mattress over to the window and I stared.  

      “It goes in the center of the room. Below the light fixture,” Mom said, once she came in. I looked up at her and shook my head. 

      “No. It goes here. For the stars,” I told her. It was a silly gesture, and even then I knew it would not work. Her room, not mine. I would not choose the placement of my bed, just as I wasn’t allowed to keep my beloved desk, and I wasn’t allowed to hang Christmas lights from the ceiling. This was a pretty room, and that meant order, which I was not accustomed to. Now, I realize the logic in this. But at eleven years old, those were reminders of a childhood I was losing, now that I was moving into middle school. I was an awfully dramatic kid.

      The mattress was moved. I tried sleeping backwards that night, only to realize it did not matter. I couldn’t see the stars from this angle. Only the dull orange roof of the house across from ours, and the occasional car blasting by. So I walked over to the window, and I craned my neck to see the stars.

       “Goodnight, Great Grandma,” I whispered. 

        When I was seven years old, my Great Grandmother died, and a part of me hopes she’s not up there in the stars, because she hasn’t heard from me in a long while yet.