6 minute read
Click by Alexsis Luciano
Click Click
Click click click. Delia glanced behind her and caught a glimpse of her father watching her from behind the swing set. With a tight grip on her new purple camera, Delia filled her lungs with the warm air and the scent of fresh-cut grass and looked for potential in the objects and people around her. The bright blue canopy that always kept the rain that threatened to drizzle the fun out, the orange slide where she learned to take turns and to be patient, the green monkey bars where she conquered her fear of heights with her daddy, and a carpet of mulch that had caught her many times before--the mulch, a warm pecan color that reminded her of her favorite Christmas treat and her mother’s arms waiting for hugs before bed. Delia told her mom she was too old for bedtime stories, but she secretly wished she would never stop telling her the complicated adventures she made up on the spot because they always managed to
by Alexsis Luciano
make her life feel safe and filled with just the right amount of adventure for a seven-year-old girl. Delia smiled and bent down close to take a picture.
After winding through the familiar tunnels and swaying swings, she snapped a few shots of her friends laughing and chasing each other. Delia paused as she came to edge of the playground’s border, looking out across the open field that led to the woods. Her and her daddy had only been a couple of times and they never went further than a few feet. They gathered leaves and sometimes, if they were lucky, different flowers for the nature journal she had been keeping up with. The last time they were searching for new plants, Delia came across a clearing with bunches of charming purple flowers that were shaped like a band of tiny horns with speckles inside their mouths. In wonder of how much they looked like a marching band with chicken pox, she had reached for them and her daddy stopped her hand right before it grazed the closest horn’s lips.
“It’s poisonous? But it’s so pretty. The speckles are so bright,
they almost look painted on.” Delia looked longingly at the bodies of blossoms embracing each other.
Delia looked around the picnic tables where her dad usually sat, and when she didn’t see him, she decided going a little ways into the field wouldn’t hurt anything. She wanted to practice using her camera’s zoom to look for animals along the edge of the woods; there were almost always squirrels rummaging around. Delia zoomed in and out-click- she found a rabbit running into a bush. In and out-click- there was a red bird heading back to her nest to feed her babies. In and out, there was her daddy; he must be taking pictures of the animals too. He thought he was slick, leaving her to take shots of the slides while he found something good like the turtle she caught a few weeks ago. Before she started toward him to declare she was on to him, she wanted to take a picture of him to show her mama when she got home. Mama loved her candid shots and if they were really good, she’d get them developed and hang them on the fridge. Click. In and out and in. Delia wondered what her daddy was smiling at behind the tree. She wanted to see what he was so perky about. Through the lens, Delia saw a bright purple fluttering in and out from behind the tree’s wide trunk. Click. Daddy leans in as if he’s going to smell the flower and rub her petals in between his fingers. Delia runs across the vacant field, she has to remind Daddy of what he warned her about. Sometimes pretty things trick you with their bright colors and bright designs. Delia began to slow to a stop just outside the woods, surprised that instead of the flower’s long green stem in her father’s hand, she saw a thick thighed leg stretching around her father, wrapping him against the tree’s trunk. As she stood frozen, watching her father kiss the woman hidden behind the tree, she was shocked by how tight he was gripping the woman’s leg. When she watched him kiss Mama, he was never so rough with her. Their kisses had always been sweet and soft. The difference almost made Delia feel a pang of concern for the woman. Almost. She stood there, continuing to study the leg as it pulled in and out of view. Instead of the hearty rich tone of her mother’s skin, this leg reminded her of the dull oyster the
sand in her sandbox turned when her cat, Chloe, mistook her sandbox for a litter box and peed in it. The sand puddled into that dull oyster and filled her play area with a stench. It rained endlessly for the next week and still that reek lasted for almost a month. Mama didn’t understand why the terrible smell wouldn’t go away. Now Delia wondered if it was because the smell had seeped into the wood of her sandbox’s walls or if her cat couldn’t resist revisiting the newfound freedom of this massive litter box. The thud of Delia’s camera on the oak’s giant root startled her father into releasing the leg, and after a profound moment of silence, Eric forced a smile and squatted down to look Delia in her stunned face. “Cordelia. How long have you been standing there?” She couldn’t remember ever having seen her father so frazzled. He looked like the boy from school who tried to give her flowers at recess, fidgeting with the cuffs of his shirt.
All she could hear was the ringing in her ears as she watched Eric stand up and wave over the woman who had been hidden in the foliage. Maybe if she stood still enough, it would be like none of this was happening and her Daddy would be pushing her on the swings instead. As she started out of hiding, the first thing that caught Delia’s eye was the woman’s bright purple skirt, speckled with blue dots, opening into a bell shape. Delia felt herself instinctively backing up.
“I’ll be waiting in the car.” Delia walked off after carefully picking up her camera from the pile of rotting leaves it had rolled into. She kept walking, her father’s calls getting further and further away. Her father slowly approached the car long after the last kid left the playground. Delia opened the car door and stared at him. She brought the camera to her face, her father’s slumped figure in her viewfinder. Click. Tears in her eyes, she looked up at her father and hurled the camera into the pavement. Hundreds of deconstructed pieces flew only to fall deserted on the asphalt. Click.
