Beginning with B

Sitting by the window, knees tucked up, I hear her reciting her "BCs."

No one can tell her that 'B' is not the first letter of the alphabet. She has always been confident about her knowledge of the universe, and in that universe, it is uncertain whether 'A' belongs in the alphabet at all. It certainly does not initiate the entire procession.

She does not stumble in her delivery. Where other children waver at 'LMNO," she wraps her tongue around the entire cluster of syllables. In the solar system as she knows it, ell-uh-minnow swims peaceful circles around stars with wobbly smiles.

Later she'll be taller, still wearing her undiminished strength, though she has come to uneasy terms with certain "facts" that contradict the world she drew in permanent marker on her bedroom walls. She plays along with the conspiracy, held fast in the knowledge that, ultimately, the things she taught herself must be basically true. What else can she trust?

Some day someone will hurt her, on purpose or accidentally. The trajectory her life has followed will falter. The spinning of the planets will slow, the dotted-line orbitals will blur. She will crawl into a chair next to the window while it rains, watching pieces of the atmosphere leave the sky to streak the glass. She will cup her palm against the dry surface she faces, almost surprised when her hand does not pass through the glass to catch the rain. If she could hold one part of the whole, cradle one drop, intact due only to the determination of its surface tension, that lost control might be retrievable. A fleeing horse caught by the end of its trailing rein.

But not now. Now she builds the fundamental truths without hesitation, a default to which she will always fall back, beginning with 'B.'