1. there was a rose that he had on his home asteroid B-67 and every day he watered it and protected it from the cold by putting it under a beauty and the beast-esque glass during the night and surrounding it with a room divider during the day 2. there was a routine to living on this asteroid, he watched the sunset multiple times a day, especially when he was sad. one day he watched 97 sunsets by moving his chair, because the sunset was constantly setting depending on which direction you faced, because the asteroid was small 3. small enough to only hold three baobab trees, so he had to dig them up as they sprouted; this was the origin story of his rose actually because he was watching this little sprout to make sure it wasn’t a baobob tree beginning to take root, but instead he was surprised by the first flower he ever saw 4. i don’t remember why he left, what instigated it or what gave him the idea that there was more to see 5. he meets a bunch of men on their own planets, including but not limited to a man who drank a lot of alcohol, and a man who lit a lamp every night on a planet that spun faster and faster and someone who counted and owned the stars, and a mapmaker – to which the little prince replied that it was valuable to go exploring to see the things on the maps he was making – to which the mapmaker replied that that was only the jobs of the explorer, so the little prince left 6. he lands on earth, and meets the narrator, and they become best friends 7. he meets a rose garden, is distraught, and realizes that the love he has for his rose is special because it is his, and he put time and energy and love into their relationship: there was nothing that a rose from the garden could add to his life that he did not already have in his rose, so he plans to leave 8. he becomes friends with a fox, “you’ve tamed me”, and “anything that is essential is invisible to the eye” and he decides to go back to his planet, to his rose 9. the narrator and the little prince part ways, and then a snake bites the little prince to return him to his home planet Because I’m seven, right, I have no intention of leaving, right, because where would I go?
One time I tried and I ran as hard as I could but I could only make it to the edge of our backyard, when I froze. I had to turn back. It was like a video game. An understanding of boundaries that I had no say in – I had to complete the quest inside, there was nothing for me out there.
The world is ugly, the ugly is different, the difference lies with my mother.
But she yells at me all the time, and then bakes me a pie and watches me eat it and waits for me to tell her I love her. It’s really uncomfortable, and I cry when I look at our family’s photo album because everyone I know is gone. There’s no brown eyes or purple eyes or green eyes looking back (goodbye brother, goodbye mother, goodbye father). All their eyes are black, and beady, and sewn into the middle of their eyes.
I hug my mother anyway because I can kind of pretend that it’s her, but then she touches me and it just sits wrong. She chases after me and I have nowhere to go because I’m seven, right, and she says once I look like them and act like them and act like things are normal then things will go back to normal. But I really don’t want buttons in my eyes, who knows the things I’ll see then.
My hands are the same, the house is the same. The stuffed animals by my bed and the snow globe on my desk. The dog doesn’t know as many tricks, it’s a bummer. I pick up the snow globe and feel the floor tilt. My mom comes in and takes it away, but I already saw it. The only picture of my family where their eyes were brown, and purple, and green, and they were reaching out to me.
When my mother insisted on the buttons, and I insisted on not-the-buttons, I ran away and tried to hide where I knew she would least expect. In the end, I go to her study. I’ve never been before. My fingers grasp the doorknob and it’s the only warmth I feel from this house. It’s the only one that feels like home. I dropped the snowglobe by accident, out of fear, when my mother entered screaming that I wasn’t supposed to be in here.
The buttons melted out of her eyes. It might just be that I had to stand up for myself like my teachers taught me, I had to be brave. Or maybe it was about what to do when you don’t know anymore what to do, this “can’t be happening but it is” moment in your life. I understand it better when I’m no longer seven.