"Sometimes you change the outer world. Always, you can change your mind. Adopt an attitude of play, and work will take its proper role in the healthy balance of all things." --Alan Cohen
When I read this I immediately thought of the unpublished children's stories I've written over the years. For me they bring a sense of play into my life. I wrote the following in 2004 as a picture book (the picture I intended is in parentheses). The idea came to me one day when I heard the doorbell to the basement door ring, but when I went down to answer it no one was there! As it turns out it was just a sticky door bell. But what if........
NO ONE WAS
THERE!
Dingggg...
Dingggg...
Dingggg...
Lillian’s mother opened the outside door to the basement garage. The deliveryman handed her a
package.
“Lill....li...an...” her mother yelled up the stairs, “I’m going out
now. I’ll be back in a little
while. Remember, don’t answer the
door if it’s a stranger.”
Lillian was in her room cutting out paper
dolls.
Dingggg....
Dingggg....
Dingggg....
Lillian’s house has three doors and three doorbells. She went to the front door and looked
out the window. But no one was
there. So she went to the back
door and looked out that window.
When she found no one at the back door she went to the garage door in
the basement.
“Hmmm,” she said. No one was
there either.
(Meanwhile, there’s
a cricket on the door windowpane.)
Dingggg...
Dingggg...
Dingggg...
She went back up the stairs to the back
door, then to the front door.
Still no one there.
Dinggg...
Dinggg...
Dinggg...
“This is ridiculous,” she muttered. Back down the stairs she went.
This time she pushed a box over to the window in the door so she could look
down on the ground in case the person ringing the doorbell was really
short. There was no one
there. Maybe Tony, the little brat
that lived next door, was playing tricks on her.
(Cricket still on the windowpane.)
Lillian went back up to her room.
Dinggg...
Dinggg...
Dinggg...
“Not again!”
Lillian did her routine again--first the front door, then the back door,
and back down the basement stairs to the garage. Just then her mother drove into the garage.
“Oh, Mom! I’m so glad you’re
home! Someone’s been ringing the
doorbell ever since you left! But
no one’s ever at the door!”
Dinggg....
Dinggg...
Dinggg...
“See!
There it goes again!”
Lillian’s mother opened the garage door and looked at the doorbell. “Here’s the problem,” she said. “The button must have gotten stuck when
the delivery man pushed it.” She
pushed it a couple times. “There
that should do it.”
(The cricket
hops inside.)
She closed the door. Lillian
went back to her room to play with her paper dolls.
(The cricket follows her up the stairs.)