t’s hard to believe that I was wrong about everything I ever told him. It feels rather like a pill that’s on your tongue. You must swallow it to get better, and yet you can’t quite force yourself to sometimes. Of course, I’ve never had a pill before. That’s only how I think it feels like. Maybe I’m wrong about that too. Who am I to talk about swallowing things when I haven’t ever swallowed a single thing in my entire life?
I haven’t done much of anything, to be honest. I was created in a factory, and brought to a toy store. I was purchased by a mother whose little girl grabbed me from the shelf and wouldn’t let me go. I sat by the window the whole car ride home, and was promptly placed on the shelf, where I’ve been for the last 13 years. But that doesn’t quite matter to me. What matters to me has always been that little girl.
Her name was Lilac. She must have been 3 when I first came to live with her; Those days were filled with lots of her talking-- Saying words that didn’t quite make sense to her yet and babbling on in her own special way of talking. It was quite wholesome, hearing her talk like that. Whatever she meant with her words, no one would ever know. But of course, children grow older. From my place on the shelf, I watched as that little girl read books and played games and chattered on excitedly with her friends, each one getting smarter by the day. One of her friends always stood out to me. Her hair was always done in tight little braids hanging down the side of her face, and there was a slight gap in between her two front teeth. I first met her the day Lilac took me to school, many years ago. She and the other little girl apparently bonded over their love for small plastic sauropods, and became fast friends. And so, Lilac spent her early days with Raniyah and I by her side. And then came Lilac’s 9th birthday.
“Happy birthday, Lilac!” Raniyah handed her a small box wrapped in teal wrapping paper, a little blue bow on the top. “Careful, it’s fragile.” I cherish that moment. I cherish it so much. I cherish the way Lilac gingerly took the gleaming paper off the box, the moment that she opened the box and her face lit up. Her face and mine. That was the moment I met him.
Everything felt absolutely sublime as I watched Lilac lift a beautiful ceramic narwhal from the box.
“Oooh! He’s so pretty!” Lilac began to shout, and she must’ve ran to Raniyah and given her a hug, but I can’t quite remember what anyone else was doing at that moment. All I could focus on was him, the lovely white narwhal that sat in the palm of Lilac’s little hand.
Is it proper for small plastic sauropods to believe in God? Lilac’s mother was all about God. Each Sunday they left the house empty, going to that thing they call church. I would hear her mother talking about this God figure, about how grand he was, about how he tested us. I’m not sure it makes so much sense to me, but it’s nice to believe that some supernatural being was responsible for the next 8 years that I spent with that dear narwhal on Lilac’s bedroom shelf. If such a God existed, then perhaps he would be to thank for the narwhal’s presence in my life.
“What’s going on?” The narwhal said, still in Lilac’s hand.
“You live with us now,” I whispered, mostly to myself. “You belong to Lilac.”
“What is she going to do with me?” The narwhal looked rather apprehensive to hear that. But I reassured him with the knowledge I had gathered in the 6 years I spent with Lilac already.
“Don’t worry, you’ll be with me on the shelf. We will stay there and watch Lilac for as long as we stay with her. You’re safe with her now, and you’ll always be safe with her.” I could see the relief in the narwhal’s face. He understood now that there was nothing to fear about living on Lilac’s shelf.
He was a bright fellow. He was intelligent and quick and kind. We sat together on the shelf, watching Lilac turn from little girl to young woman, nearly an adult. We watched her read books and look at things online, as she was of that age where she was beginning to use the internet to explore herself further.
“I think Lilac will wake up tomorrow and dress goth.” The narwhal once exclaimed.
“Why on earth would she do that?”
“I just have a feeling about it,” He went on. “Little girls with flower names grow up to be sophisticated and ethereal.”
“What does that have to do with dressing goth?” I was more amused than I was confused. The narwhal had funny logic sometimes, and it was fun to see him go down into a train of thought that made only a little sense sometimes.
“Lilac is not a usual girl. She will not grow up to be a usual woman. I think she’s just beginning to discover that for herself, you know,” The narwhal stared out as Lilac was looking at some pictures online. “Her way of wearing pretty dresses and pretty-coloured clothes will change into wearing mostly blacks and jeans with tears and lots of chains and spikes everywhere. Oh, and plenty of eyeliner.” He must’ve realized how I was staring at him, because he then exclaimed, “I can’t help making these observations. I’m an artist.”
“I think you’re more crazy than an artist.”
“Well, who said the two were mutually exclusive?”
Somehow, the narwhal’s predictions were kinda right. Lilac was changing. She wore eyeliner and mostly blacks and jeans with tears and lots of chains. One day, she even came home and all her wispy blonde curls were gone. Someone had buzzed her hair right off.
“What did I tell you?” The narwhal had a lot of fun sticking it up to me after. I just rolled my eyes and admitted he was right. Our Lilac had, without a doubt, gone goth.
Raniyah was changing too, from the few times we had both seen her. She traded her braids in for dreadlocks, and though she wore a little more colour than our goth Lilac, she was certainly not a usual girl either. We hadn’t seen too many usual girls in our lives, to be completely honest, but we were quite certain that Lilac and Raniyah were not usual girls.
Our suspicions were confirmed one beautiful evening. It wasn’t quite unusual of an evening at first, as Raniyah typically came over once every two weeks or so. But this particular evening would change things forever.
“Hehe, I remember when you gave me this,” Lilac had murmured, taking the narwhal off the shelf. I watched very carefully as her fingers traced all over the narwhal’s ceramic face, his horn, his fins and tail. “It was for my 9th birthday, right? It feels so long ago. It’s weird how I’m almost 18 now.”
“Everything’s gonna change next year, huh,” Raniyah muttered. Now it was my turn to be taken from the shelf, held in her large calloused hands. “Will you still keep your precious sauropod?” She teased Lilac by waving me in front of her face.
“Are you kidding? Of course he’s coming with me to college!” Lilac exclaimed. A tiny sliver of the little girl who picked me from the shelf all those years ago showed just then. “Your narwhal too.” She added. They laughed together, kneeling over the bed and holding me and the narwhal in their precious hands. It was then that I noticed the way Lilac looked at Raniyah.
It was then that I felt the soft bed behind me, as Raniyah put me back down on the bed. I watched as Lilac did the same with the narwhal.
It was then as the narwhal and I watched as Lilac took Raniyah’s face in her hands and kissed her right then and there.
I was in a state of shock, to be quite honest. Lilac? And Raniyah? Kissing??? The narwhal didn’t seem phased at all when I looked at him.
“Every goth needs her skater girl, ya know,” He said. “Just like every sauropod needs his narwhal.” It hit me in that moment that this must be another act of the God Lilac’s mother talked about. God truly was beautiful! He brought together goth girls and skater girls, and narwhals and sauropods. I knew at that point that I believed in this God.
That was the last beautiful night we had for a while. Some days later we heard an awful yelling from downstairs, followed by the sound of two people charging up the stairs. The narwhal and I glanced nervously at each other, as Lilac stomped into her room and tried to slam the door. But it looked like someone was pushing back, and it wasn’t long before Lilac’s mother stormed into the room.
I can’t remember entirely what they were saying to each other. They were angry. Lilac was crying. Lilac’s mother was yelling something about Raniyah and something about sin. It was then that her eyes fell on the narwhal and I.
It was then that Lilac’s mother grabbed the narwhal most horribly from the shelf. It was then that I screamed out in horror, though no one would hear it but the narwhal. It was then that I shut my eyes tight, and I heard the sound of ceramic exploding on the wooden floor. And then Lilac’s mother stormed out of the room and everything was quiet for a moment.
It was then that I stopped believing in whatever God Lilac’s mother spoke about. I opened my eyes to see Lilac sobbing into her pillow, and my beautiful narwhal in pieces on the floor. How could a God so loving and kind shatter both my narwhal and my heart like that? How could a God who loved all his children make a mother hate her own child so much? Oh, how I loathed God! I hated him, I hated him, I hated him! I was wrong to believe him in the first place. I would never believe in him again!
But I would always believe in Lilac. That would never change. The beautiful girl who lay sobbing on her bed, I would always believe in her. And I came to this conclusion the moment I watched her dry her tears, stand up tall, and take a deep breath. I watched how she gingerly scooped up the pieces of the narwhal and placed them on her empty desk. Oh, how it hurt me to see my narwhal all shattered up like that. But then she took out a bottle of paste from her drawer. I watched as she methodically used a brush to apply the gray paste to the jagged broken edges.
For nearly an hour I watched closely as Lilac put the ceramic pieces back together, first the head, then the fins, then the tail, and finally the single horn to the top of his head. I watched as she used a damp washcloth to wipe the excess paste from the narwhal.
And then his eyes opened again. He looked at Lilac, then he looked at me, and he looked at his own body which was now covered in gray cracks, a reminder of where he had been broken. And then he was back on the shelf with me.
“I think I look better like this,” The narwhal said. “I think I look pretty cool like this.”
At that moment I burst into tears. I had been silent the whole time the narwhal was put back together, but I couldn’t hold back the sheer emotion I was feeling.
“Hey,” The narwhal said to me, “I’m okay now. Things will be alright.”
“I’m so sorry!”
“Don’t be. We’ll be alright, dear,” The narwhal went on. “What matters right now is that Lilac knows what to do with herself now. Can’t you see that?” I could barely speak back, so I only gave the narwhal a confused look.
“I can tell I wasn’t the only thing shattered by Lilac’s mother,” The narwhal stared down at Lilac, who was now curled up in her bed, silent and somber. “But look at me! I’ve been fixed. You can still see the cracks, but I am whole again!” I stared right down into the narwhal’s eyes, just as I did when Lilac had lifted him from the gift box all those years ago. “My love for you will never be shattered. Lilac and Raniyah will only grow stronger. Whether it be together, or apart. But I can guarantee you, what has been shattered can be fixed. We’re going to be alright.”
I couldn’t help but remember how the narwhal had correctly predicted that Lilac would go goth. Now, I just hoped that he had made another correct prediction. I knew for certain that things wouldn’t be the same ever again. But then, things changed long before. Lilac had buzzed her hair and wore black clothes and chains and makeup all the time. Raniyah had dreadlocks instead of braids. The narwhal had gray crack marks all over him instead of being the smooth white he once was. Perhaps I would change in the near future. But until then, we’ve got a lot of cracks to fix.