SYLVIE'S DREAM
Papa inspires another literary flight by Sylvie. Here in translation from the French -
Good morning…
My name is Silvia. I have just turned 5 months old and all I can do is crawl on the floor.
When I go out, it is always with Mama.
Today she dolled me up, with perfume yet, and settled me into the baby-carrier, firmly tied around her waist.
I think something big will take place, but I am sleepy.
I slept as she walked briskly into the fresh morning air.
When I wake up, I hear a steady hum, as in a beehive.
So many grown-ups laughing and talking… then they start to scream!
Are they all hungry at the same time? I am fine! I had my bottle on time…
What are they screaming about? Did the nipple (of the milk bottle) slip? Did someone take their teddy bear?
Mama too seems agitated – I’m still sleepy, but now she’s holding me up and away from her warm body…
Oooh…I don’t like this at all – where will she put me?
I will raise a racket to show my disapproval!
But I don’t have time...
Terrified, I feel two large hands take me from Mama’s hands…
Mama!!! – I am being kidnapped!…I want to move my hands in protest but… I see..
Two hands, strong but gentle at the same time, have brought me face to face with… an angel!
He is tall, all in white, radiantly beautiful: his eyes look at me very tenderly and he smiles…
Mama always says to me, “Sleep, my angel” – I must be very beautiful if I look like that…
I open my eyes wide and I feel two light and caressing hands – like Mama’s – on my head:
The angel brings his head close to me and I feel a gentle kiss on my forehead.
I feel as if I am bathed in the warmth of love – I want to clutch his white garment
and have a long cuddle with him, but the hands which hold me now draw me back…
The beautiful angel smiles, and I feel like I am in flight…
Mama is smiling, she is happy because she has her little Silvia back.
“Well, my little doll, you have seen him, yes?”
Seen what, who? Surely she does not know that I have flown to Paradise, that I was kissed
by the most beautiful of angels and that I have come down too fast…
I gurgle a few sounds, but she does not seem to understand.
I must learn fast to speak like she does, so I can tell her everything…
For now, I dream of that meeting… I seem to see him everywhere, even there, just behind
that big chair. He is singing… something beautiful… I hear him… I fall asleep….
Sylvie adds:
Thanks to Sihaya whose photograph (above) inspired this impossible dream.
But I would love to be a baby again (with my adult mind) to be carried by him whom
we see here, so sweet and kind, white like my angel, so radiant, so wonderful in this photo...
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 01/02/2006 22.48]