The walls sway, soft like jelly, brown like chocolate.  They expand and deform, shedding drops into little pools.  From the pools outward, I must follow the straight vertical lines of the floor.  My foot, shoe size six, doesn't occupy fully the ceramic, but it may hesitate and land on a horizontal line.  I get ready.

Dad stands by the door on the other side of the room.  Again he says we are in a hurry.  Then he says he is in a hurry.  I don't want to detain him.  He shouldn't be late.

"Come on Suzy," he says.

I touch the wall with my fingers and watch my hand dive into the liquid jelly.  At the same time, I sense the coolness of bricks.  I close my eyes, and feel the chill running from my fingertips up to my throat.  When I open them, Dad stands beside me.

"Ride on my back but don't grab my neck," he says.  He bends down, and I climb over his back to ride him out.  The faster he goes, the steadier and stiffer everything looks.  I was told this is a problem of perception.  Dad closes the door behind us and we walk between the two cheeks of fresh green grass in our front yard.  I take a look at the sky.   White, almost transparent lines weave soft clouds with orange halos.  Because we are still moving, the sky is getting too solid and straight.

"Stop!"  I cry.

Dad stands still holding on to the gate.  His bicycle leans against the red metal, glimmering in purple.  Both of us look upward.  Dad smiles.  "What can you see now that you couldn't see before, Suzy?"

"Look at the clouds," I tell him.

"We are in a hurry," he says.

I sneak another look at the sky.  It stretches like a silken tent over us, the clouds flee away from the sun, kicked to the sides.  Dad's fingers pound on the bicycle as if it were a piano, and then they push the horn.  Ah.  The sound made the sun quiver.

"Daddy," I say and let the word roll over my tongue like a sweet.

He takes my hand.  "The doctors must find how we can take better care of you."  I don't like the breaks between the syllables.  My feet smash a crack in the ground and all hell breaks lose.  My body burns under my clothes.  The skin starts peeling as the noise inside my head bangs:  "no no no no no no no no no no no no no" I am in a black hot tunnel.

From outside something takes control over the mess in my head.  My banging weakens.  I open my eyes and see Dad stamping his foot.  The rhythm is growing slower and my noise adjusts itself to the sound.  Dad's face is red and shining.  His high forehead is sweating.  I see a translucent drop.

"You suffer too much.  They have calming syrups," he says.

"Sweet syrups?"  I ask.

"Very sweet."

But who suffers?  The houses on the street explode in a burst of color and flow in a river that rushes away.  Black cracks emphasize the tones of gray, streaming around us.

Dad straightens his bicycle, stands open legged and indicates the little place in front.  "Come here," he says.

On weekends, he takes me on the bike to the fields.  Mother rides hers right beside us.  Dad says she is a jockey because she is light, and fast and strong.  I look at the softness of her light-brown hair when it's blown back.  Riding quickly paralyzes the way, but I control my impatience.  Mom brings sandwiches to eat while sitting over a colorful blanket.  She gets upset when I can't eat.  But there is so much movement of colors toward the limit of my vision, I can't take my eyes of it.  She says I'm so white I am almost as transparent as a ghost.

"You're fifty pounds.  Twelve year old girls must weigh a lot more," she says.  She repeats it.  She is crying.  She grabs my nose and puts food in my open mouth.  I struggle back as the noise in my head grows wild.  It crashes and screams inside and I hit the ground with my forehead.

Once at home, my parents call for help.  The doctors, the young one, thin and brown, the other, stout and pink don't like me.  Dad says he will stay home with me when I can't go to school.

Now the situation is growing bad.  Mother earns very little.  We must do something.  We can't go on.  I know we have to change.  I know.  We shouldn't be late.

I lean against Dad and he lifts me to sit between his arms on the bicycle.  Slowly, we ride down the street.  The houses still pour colors and the road licks them with black tongues.  At the end of our street, in the decline, the bicycle speeds up and the houses suddenly stand erect and square.

"Dad!"  I can't hold back.   Soon, we are riding on a plain land again.  The hospital is not far, but all we see are fields.  We slow down, still moving.  From the bike, I see strings of red and yellow stabbing the green ground like spears.  The corpulent clouds have become flat.  I push myself back toward Dad's chest and curl my body under his.  He rides on in silence.

After a while he stops.  He stands holding the bicycle with one hand and me with the other.

"Look at the sky," he says.  He helps me get off.

"Aren't we in a hurry?"  I ask.  I am worried.

"No," he says.  "We aren't."

Author Bio

Avital Gad-Cykman lives on an island in Brazil.  Her work can be found in the USA, Canada, Britain, and Australia, as well as online.  She was born in Israel.