There was a little girl once. Nine years old. Had a brother. He’d turn three soon. And they had a tiny car. No air conditioning. They fought and they fought. The brother and sister, that is. She would have long, thin marks on her arms from his little fingernails. What he would have she doesn’t remember.
That was about the only time in their lives they fought. It wasn’t their fault, it was the tiny car, stuffed to the brim with things to eat on the trip. They would always have picnics, the poor little travellers’ family. The girl would sometimes whine that she would prefer something dinner-like and that she will not survive another spoonful of canned tuna. So they’d go to a buffet on a mall somewhere, and she would stuff herself till she absolutely could not eat anymore, and would be hungry two hours later. I want something dinner-like.
It was the tiny car with no air conditioning. On rest areas they would buy gigantic packages of ice. It would drip onto their necks, dissolving into a blissful cool. Joy such as air conditioning can never give.
The little family was going to Yellowstone. From Ohio, some million million miles.
They passed through prairies populated by bison. They thought these were amazing animals. In a visitor center they heard how such a creature could kill you, but that if you didn’t bother it, it wouldn’t. They were Chris’s favorite animals for a while. Back home, when the neighbor’s cat left a paw mark on a window, Mom asked him what animal could have left this print. “A bison?” he asked tentatively...
Poor child with an unconventional education, knowing bisons before cats. But all was not lost; a year later he would not even remember what a bison was...
In Yellowstone one can find geysers. And plenty of chemicals with weird names and weirder smells. “What’s that smell, Chris, huh, what’s that smell?” “Eve pooped.” The little two-year-old brat.
The geysers explode at so-called regular intervals. Eve remembers standing in front of Old Faithful for a few ages and wondering to what extent its name was ironic.
They slept in a tent, of course. Coyotes would howl at night. At first Mom and Dad thought it was a pack of drunkards whining and screaming, it sounded so human-like. Eve remembers remembering that there were coyotes.
Ooh, they slept in a tent at night. Stars in the little see-through part on top of the tent. So absolutely magical. One evening they had a supper of baked potatoes and barbecued chicken. People from all over the campground would come round and smack their lips in envy.
They climbed a few mountains. Not nearly as many as the girl would have liked. She remembers her first real mountain peak. Little Devil’s Tower. They came to a point where it was thrilling. Mom said she would stay with Chris here. The big girl went with Dad. Rugged cliffs and a sense of infinity, it was the same exhilaration a very similar girl would later feel in the Pyrenees. But no similar girl would ever feel as simply proud as this one did that day.
On the last day in Yellowstone they went to another mountain. They reached a lot of snow and couldn’t go further in their cheap sandals. Sad and disappointing...
On that trip they would also visit Mount Rushmore. Eve remembers vividly the video in the visitor center. It said that the figures were huge, really huge, that just the nose of one of them was some number of feet that was too impossible to remember. It said that it took many, many people to build it, and that some were hurt and died. Eve walked on a wooden boardwalk that led towards the monument and wondered whether it had been worth it. Whether this was something taxpayers should have contributed to. Whether it was something people should have died for. Whether the mountain hadn’t been more beautiful in its abstract way before the figures were carved.
Little big girl.
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