My weekly art therapy group friends gathered out the front of the property to admire my most recent sculpture. I had just finished painting and was still in the tell-tale artist's overalls and had my long hair tied up in a bun.

The pretty little thing with the flawless skin and worries not much more than having a dead cat, clasped her hands behind her back, cocked her head in a quizzical way and asked, “What is it?”

“I call it; You get what you ask for.”

A few of the group looked at me, suspiciously, and with complete unawareness written over their blank faces. Yet others laughed heartedly (they were the women I really liked) until a little wee squished out. Some poor morons walked around the piece and examined it from all angels of light, linguistics and symbolism.

“What does that tell us about our lives though,” asked the pretty little thing again. She took group therapy so seriously. She was the one who always did her homework, always arrived relaxed and perfectly dressed and cringed when any of the women swore. I liked the women that swore. They were normal. Pretty little thing fell far short of the mark of normalcy.

I considered telling her she was a complete dickhead but one thing the group had taught me was tolerance: tolerance of dickheads.

“When I was a child,” I began in my story song voice, “my favourite fruit was Mango. We lived in a farming part of Queensland, a place were Mango farms sold their produce at honesty stalls. I couldn’t pass one without crying out, mango, mango.”

I shrugged my shoulders and indicated end of story. “I got what I asked for and hence I dedicate my sculpture to this lesbian community.”

“I don’t get it,” she screwed her pretty little nose up, narrowing her eyes and indeed looking anything but pretty. She looked more stupid, more like they way she acted. At least she was coordinated.

I started to walk away, but I reconsidered. That frickin’ therapist had finally gotten to me: to get different results you must do something different.

My difference today was to help pretty little thing get the link.

Patiently and with a raised intonation at the end of my sentence to indicate a question of whether she was capable of understanding, I slowly pursed, “Man-go, man go. I am a lesbian?”

“I don’t know?” came her cute response. “I don’t think you are a lesbian. You’ve got long hair.”

Sometimes difference and patience just aren’t worth it.



If you wish to join the Writers Prompt Daily simply use the above photo as a prompt and post a short story, poem or paragraph to your blog. Leave a comment and the link here so that all participants can come to you and read/comment/encourage. Story above is copyright and is Megan Bayliss' writing around the above picture prompt.