The Big Picture

The Big Picture

The twelve year-old lay on her front, legs kicking absently behind her keeping time to an unheard tune. One of her once white, grubby grey socks had dislodged itself to lie in loose folds around her ankle. The other, the one with some residue of elasticity remaining, clung to her leg just below the chubby knee. Her hair flopped in an unkempt braid to her mid back, bits coming awry at irregular intervals down its length, the bottom secured with a red ribbon which had endured a long and boisterous day. It had unravelled leaving a red strand of cotton clinging to her tatty blue jumper

Her face was pretty but for the set features and the fierce scowl of concentration. Her tongue lolled out of the left hand side of her mouth, darting along her bottom lip as the felt pen scratched backwards and forwards across the page. The soft skin below the lip was much sucked and raw showing the first signs of chapping.

‘...And before we hand over to the weather centre for the regional outlook for the next twenty-four hours, a quick re-cap of the world’s headlines, as they happened today

‘The devastation in northern Turkey looks set to continue almost a week after a hurricane blew across the county, wiping out vast areas of densely populated township. It killed thousands and left thousands more desolate, wounded and homeless.

‘In New York, a plague of killer mosquitoes are holding the city in a grip of fear. The mutant strain of insect has already claimed the lives of three people and fifty more lie in a critical condition around the city. People are being advised to stay indoors with all windows secured.

‘Closer to home and in the north sea an oil tanker has run aground sending out a slick of oil a mile and a half long. It is estimated that three thousand sea birds along the coast have been washed up covered in the black oil. Rescue workers have assembled and are racing against the clock to treat the birds before they succumb to the deadly oil and die

‘A twelve year old child is said to be comfortable in hospital today after giving birth to a Six pound four ounce baby Boy. A spokesman for the West Cheshire hospital said ...’

A mother in Scotland turned off the television, as did others in England, Ireland and Wales. It was time to wash up the dinner things and think about getting children to bed. The length and breadth of the globe, other families, in other homes were going about their daily rituals.

‘Mum, I've finished,’ the child ran to her mother to show her the finished picture. The mother smiled down at her child trying to muster some encouragement. The picture showed a little girl with legs splayed giving birth to a rag doll. The mother placed it down on the worktop next to the picture of the oil covered birds.

 ‘That's very interesting dear, but why don't you do something a bit more cheerful?’

The child gave her Mother the, oh you're old, what do you know, look. Presently the mother heard her daughter's pens scribbling frantically. She looked at some of the recent pictures and frowned. Worry clouded her gentle face. She’d consulted a child psychologist about the pictures. He hadn’t been helpful and said not to worry about them, that it was just the child's way of building herself a more exciting world.  What more could she want than this? After all, wasn't this Utopia? Everybody was happy here.

The mother fingered each picture, looked at it and then put it face down on the table. They’d begun so nicely. Her daughter had talent, there was no denying that, people in a beautiful garden, a boat, full of animals, a queen being crowned. Then they’d changed. It was a gradual, subtle change taking place over several pictures. It was only when you looked at them in order of date that you noticed the turning. The colours were darker. It started with people fighting, ugly pictures of people hurting each other in unimaginable ways. Where had she got such a notion? People didn't do that to each other. Some of the pictures were titled. The child had an imagination and made up new words like famine war and hunger

The mother of God picked up the latest picture. She thought it was quite pretty. Maybe her daughter’s dark phase was coming to an end. It showed a blue and green ball engulfed in flames. She shook her head sadly as she looked at her little girl; God really was developing a morbid imagination. ‘But this is Utopia,’ said Mary.