Seven years old

The Prince of Egypt is the best movie ever.

I’m watching the movie for the one thousandth time. I can’t help it. It’s so wonderful. I love stories about people visiting different places, finding their true calling. I want to do that so badly.

I want to run away. Never come back to this place.

Mommy got the video from Blockbuster. I like going to Blockbuster, but I can never get any video games from there. I don’t like it. Mommy says they cost too much.

Everything costs too much.

I watch the wrath of God take all the firstborn sons of Egypt. I already know what happens, but it still excites me anyway. The popcorn in my tiny bowl gets on the carpet and I’m too busy to notice, trying to focus on the bright entrancing colors.

My Mommy walks in, the door already open and tells me I have to go to bed.

“I want to finish it,” I whine. “This is my favorite.”

My Mommy allows it, because it is a Christian film, and then I can go to bed.

I pick up the pieces of popcorn from the floor because Mommy told me to, and I try to watch the movie as I do so. My shirt that is too small for me bunches up and I hate it.

I don’t like being fat.

“You and your people have my permission to go. Leave me!”

Moses can finally leave his father, his brother, like I wish I could leave mine.

I wipe my dirty hands on my already dirty blue and ill fitting shirt and continue to stare up at the small TV on my dresser. It’s black and blocky, but has plenty of room for the built in VHS player.

My second favorite scene continues, as the Hebrews make their traverse through the sea. Moses uses his staff, and he guides them, as their subjugators follow them, but I know the ending.

That they will get to the promised land.

Mommy says this movie is important. To never listen to the slavers and colonizers.

I already know not to, but I don’t care about that. I like the songs, and the dancing, and Moses. The prince of Egypt who gave it all up for his true family.

I want to find mine.

The movie ends and I try to be sly. I want to watch my favorite part again, the beginning. Images of people being flayed and whipped on the screen flitter by, and I smile.

Deliver Us begins and I love it so much.

I too want to be a secret prince, with an older sibling that watches over me, as Moses' older sister watched him down the Nile. I too want to be delivered from where I am to a new and better home.

My Mommy hears the song playing, and she knows that I started it again.

She turns off the film and I get ready for bed, pouting and upset.

I want more.

I feel a little excited as I see the clock says 9:29, and it’s been a long time since I’ve stayed up that late. I stare defiantly at the giant blue oil bin that had been cleaned out and repurposed to hold items to be sent abroad.

Why do they always put it in my room? Why can’t they put it somewhere else?

I know I have school in the morning, so I get dressed in my blue pajama dress and turn off the lights.

The door is left open a little to let light stream in, so nothing can hurt me, of course. Grandma told me when she came to visit two years ago that there is nothing to be afraid of in the Dark.

Because there is nothing!

She said it like it was the most simple thing in the world. So obvious. But that is a lie.

There are Many Horrible Things In The Dark.

They come for me when I sleep, and just like every other night I know they will Return.

I don’t want to sleep by myself. I want to sleep with my Mommy.

“You’re too old to get nightmares like this,” she told me.

I still get them every day.

I like sleeping better than the Horror Of Daylight so I choose the option of sleep.