If you have ever sat waiting for a face mask to dry and felt the fresh newness of your skin begin to pucker under the pressure of the evaporating moisture then you will know exactly what Anna Crumble-Squeeze felt like in her first conscious moment. If she had not been so wide at her base I am quite sure she would have fainted to the floor in a daze from all the toxic fumes souped together in the air: paint, varnish, lacquer, but fortunately she was a stout little soul....or a little stout soul, depending on your perspective.
It was pinpricks of light that she first became aware of, followed by a blur of images slowly coming into focus,like when you look into a steam fogged bathroom mirror and it starts to come clear. And the images were all versions of the same face, peering down at her, smiling and cooing admiringly at her miniature perfection. They were not identical, some had a slight crook to the nose, others a tighter mouth, but the overall impression was one of repeated images.
"Oh! She has my nose" Matryoshka Nana said.
"Yes, poor thing! But she has my delicate cheeks"
"... and my rosebud mouth, Nana Lila"
“Yes darling, and won't you look at her curls, aren't they precious, Ma'Rosa?
Helena stroked her hand and Katia contented herself with admiring the brown and yellow painted shawl with pink rose buds that was the mark of her family. Ella hugged herself, she finally knew what it was to have the emptiness in her belly filled. Anna Crumble Squeeze looked about her smiling at these six ladies who seemed filled with love and curiosity about her and felt rather shy.
"Hello, my name is Anna, Anna Crumble Squeeze"
"Of course you are, my darling" said Ella, " and I am your Mother, Ella. I have waited a long time to see you with my own eyes. This is a most wonderful day. Let me introduce the others. First the elder Mothers, Matryoshka Nana Pavlova, NanaLila Pavlova and MamaRosa Pavlova They are the first three generations of the family and have seen more in their time than most. Matryoshka Nana survived alone a whole Winter in the Summer Palace. With no fires in the hearth to warm the space it became so cold that Jack Frost let himself in and spent the day drawing patterns on the inside of the windows." Ella bent close to whisper in Anna's ear, "Don't stare but you can see the cracks beginning to show in her paint where she got bitten by the freeze." Then standing tall and speaking to the whole group again, "She survived a great trial but was reunited with us the following Summer and has protected her girls ever since through heat, cold, dust and disaster."
At this the sisters all joined hands and bowed their heads in a whispered prayer, chanting
"Heat, cold, dust and disaster" before Ella carried on as if nothing significant had just happened, "...and we love her all the more for it. Helena is Mama Rosa's daughter and my Grandmama and last is my own Mama, Katia Crumble-Squeeze. She is the first Mama of the Crumble Squeeze dynasty named in honour of the Patissiere who rescued us after 'the Disaster'. It was he and his daughter Karin who brought me to the light. Karin showed her father the crack reaching all around Mama Katia's Middle and, wise man that he was, the Patissiere told Karin there was hidden treasure within. By gently warming and releasing the damp-swollen band at Mama Katia's Middle I was brought into the world. And now, thanks to the Artisan I too have become a Mama. No longer will I feel the emptiness of shadows at my core for you will nestle forever in my heart."
Anna Crumble Squeeze blinked slowly taking in the kind faces before her and immediately understood that she was part of a whole, one segment of an orange. She was not whole without these Mama's just as they were incomplete without her.
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