The Troll Who Loved a Girl

Author's Note: Or, respectively, "Anna-Maria and the Troll". I wrote this short story last week, as a kind of follow-up to my previous post, which also concerned trolls and the supernatural. In this story, a little girl named Anna-Maria befriends an ancient troll who haunts her garden and rabbit hutch. I plan to write several additional stories like this in the future. Enjoy!

By the age of seven, Anna-Maria already knew one troll, who especially liked to follow her around the garden and rabbit hutch. She was scared to death of him, and sometimes he surprised her by being there when she least expected him. He almost never came in the house, but sometimes he did, and the little girl had to yell and chase him out again with a broom, like an unwanted cat.

The troll’s name was simply Rölli, and he’d been a resident of Anna-Maria’s yard for countless centuries. And in all that time, to be sure, Rölli had encountered numerous children, both boys and girls, living in the house, and scampering in the garden where he made his home.

But so far, none had been as fair as Anna-Maria, though she had four younger siblings, all of which were also quite pretty, in their own way, and occasionally caught sight of fearsome Rölli. The troll found Anna-Maria to be a wonder among humans! She was small for her age, with fine, long black braids and pale eyes the color of that flower called kissankello: cat’s clock.

The troll, having been alone for such a long time, was fairly smitten with the young and altogether mortal Anna-Maria, in an interesting sort of way.

The girl, however, couldn’t do enough to warn her sister and brothers away from Rölli. Once or twice, she left food outside on the steps for Rölli, wondering if that was all he really wanted. Then she cautiously approached him one rainy spring day with a pair of flannel pajamas the baby had outgrown, because she remembered hearing somewhere that an annoying troll would leave your house on the spot if ever presented with clothing.

Rölli only accepted Anna-Maria’s gift with a crooked grin that made the child shudder greatly, and gave her flowers in return!

Anna-Maria took the flowers from Rölli, wide-eyed and fearful. If she didn’t take the flowers, then would the troll turn on her? Rölli’s slight, gnarled fingers ended with sharp claws like those of a cat or wolverine, but the curved claws that graced his smallest fingers seemed to be the most dangerous.

Even so, the little girl put Rölli’s flowers in a bottle with water so they wouldn’t die right away, and put the bottle on the windowsill, so the troll would see it and know that though she feared him, she meant no real ill-will.

Anna-Maria’s mother sent her to the garden for carrots, and the girl searched everywhere for the lacy green leaves of carrots, but only found some other nearby vegetables disturbed from where they usually lay, and the telltale claw-marks crisscrossing the dark earth. She knew exactly who had made them!

She glanced over her shoulder, and saw Rölli at the rabbit hutch, pleased with what he’d gone and done without Anna-Maria knowing, and grinning mischievously as the rabbit nibbled joyously on the tasty orange roots.

“Rölli!” Anna-Maria yelled, utterly exasperated. “Those were our carrots, and now you’ve taken every one! What should I tell Äiti? She’s inside, trying to cook for us in peace!”

“Rabbits eat carrots,” Rölli replied, still grinning. “I fed your rabbit. Tell Äiti the truth.”

“Well, thank you,” Anna-Maria said, red-faced with embarrassment. “But I was going to feed him carrots later. You didn’t have to.”

“No matter,” the troll said in his usual gravelly tone, shrugging it off. Nothing seemed to bother him much, or at least not like it did Anna-Maria!

“There are no carrots left,” the human girl said helplessly.

But Rölli, always ready to be of her assistance, left suddenly and then came back with several pale and odd-scented twisted roots with the dirt still clinging to them here and there, which he put into Anna-Maria’s small hands. He’d given her wild carrots, which thrived in the bogs and were hard to find. In his eyes, they made a good carrot replacement.

Anna-Maria decided to thank the ancient troll quietly, though she was a bit confused as to why Rölli had wanted to do this for her. Maybe he wasn’t such an evil troll, after all.

She started to run back towards the house, but a few steps later Anna-Maria turned around to see if the troll was still there. And he was; Rölli was gazing at Anna-Maria with rapt attention. The little girl smiled, feeling slightly more at ease around Rölli. “Would you like to come inside with me?” she asked.

But Rölli stared down at his bare, sharply-clawed feet, and said sort of shyly, “The little ones could be scared of me.”

“What, of you?” Anna-Maria whispered laughingly, knowing that Rölli was speaking of her sister and brothers. “They won’t be scared of you, Rölli. I won’t let them be. I used to be scared of you, but I’m not anymore. Come in.”

So the troll peered upwards into Anna-Maria’s kissankello eyes, and grinned. The girl then took him by a single clawed hand, and together, they crossed the yard and went inside for dinner.

Of Trolls, Ghosts, and Other Apparitions

This is a true story: Back in early March, on a cold and rainy day, I had nothing else in the world to do with myself, and so I decided to take a walk with one of my dogs in the deep, ancient woods up around my grandfather's house, which is located near an area many people refer to as an "elf site", an old place where the supernatural is quite easy to spot, if you know how to find it. I was skipping along the grassy crest of a low hill, which flanks the so-called elf site, not really paying attention to much, when all of a sudden, Lightening began to bark and howl in such a way, I was afraid he might have gotten himself hurt! The sound of it made me pause in my tracks, and look over my shoulder to where my dog was, having firmly planted himself in the ground, and now growling to beat the band. He seemed to be staring at something, but as I cast my glance around, I had no idea of what it could be. "Baby Lights," I whispered laughingly, "What's wrong with you, Boy?" However, the scruffy ginger-colored Chow ignored my voice, and continued to growl ferociously. Needless to say, I was completley confused, but this was nothing too out of the ordinary--I have five dogs, and they always like to bark, even when there's absolutley nothing around to give them a reason to do so, which I, at least, can see. This particular time, though, I was about to turn away from Lightening and start walking again, when a being who appeared to be less than a meter tall abruptly strolled out of the willowy, yellow-flowered forsythia bushes, and stood directly before my dog, as if contemplating the effect of Lightening's fearful growls. I was horrified! The being, or "thing", or whatever it was, wasn't solid in body, as you and I of course are. It actually reminded me quite a lot of those old cartoons we've all seen of Casper the Ghost, in which Casper appears to be made out a substance that reminds me strongly of hardened fog, or maybe smoke...I could only see this small ghost, or troll, by looking at it with a three-quater view, meaning that I couldn't see it as well if I stared at it head-on, nor was it anywhere near as visible if I tried to see it with complete periphial vision. Still, though, I was so scared! But I found the experience so interesting, I wasn't about to leave. My dog finally stopped growling and barking, and just gazed at the little ghost, who was by now beginning to fade. I then quite forgot to study it with only a three-quarter view, and turned my head to look at it fully. When I did that, he was gone, just like a fleeting mist, as if he'd never been there, and my dog came over to me, wagging his tail happily, evidently proud that he'd scared the troll off, when in reality, the troll had come very close to scaring the both of us off. Finally, I ran away, heart pounding with an exciting and confusing combination of wonder and fear.

I'm not the only one to have ever caught sight of this nature-spirit, to be sure. My dear grandmother, God rest her soul, reported seeing such things on several occassions before her untimely death in 1993. Aside from her and one other person who shall, according to his wishes remain totally nameless here, seeing what I did, Grandma also said she used to watch the figures of an old woman and a very little boy, "wearing a lace collar" pass through the thin walls of the hundred-year-old house she lived in. And nearly everybody in my neighborhood knows good and well that a century ago when my house and hers were first built, there were four young kids, the children of the servants who resided in my own house, who died upon an especially bad outbreak of the scarlet fever swept through this city, in 1909. Consequently, the apparitions of the little boy, as well as the ultra-fast and incoherent whisperings of the little girls have been heard all around. Also, in the dead of winter when there is snow on the ground, and no flowers around to explain the fragrance, you can sometimes catch the sudden scent of something that smells to me like Cherry Coke, only in one spot. Take a single step away from that certain place, and the smell will be gone. But come back again, and it'll be as strong and heady as ever.

About trolls: many of us have grown up hearing stories about changelings, trolls, and other such hidden creatures. One of my favorite artists and writers, a woman by the name of Jan Brett, explores the more Scandinavianesqe notion of how trolls might really look, depicting all of hers with a head full of thick, unruly hair, and very long, slightly tufted tails. In Jan Brett's wonderful short story "The Trouble With Trolls", the trolls are all full of mischief, but are mostly good, when it really comes down to it. They steal things, sometimes, but usually either return it after a while, or else leave something else which they view to be just as good, in the missing object's place. This is where all the stories of changelings come from, when a troll mother steals a human baby, and leaves her own fiendish child behind for the human mother to try and take care of, for as long as possible, until the villagers see the changed baby for what it really is, and decided to kill it. Over the centuries, many innocent children have been murdered for this reason, whether it be by drowning, a savage beating, or by fire. The youngest child ever murdered by the witch-hunters in Boston, Massachusettes, was a girl of three, who had no father her mother would name, but was a very beautiful and healthy little girl, all the same. The more realistic version of this story goes that one of the local goodwives, who had lost all her own children in the course of only five years, threw a frightening vendetta against her neighbor's child, this child, who had been born and lived out of wedlock. She apparently told the Boston councel that she had witnessed the little girl moving something with her eyes alone, in "unholy fire", whatever that means. And so the witch-hunters came, threw the unwed woman and her child in jail, and a month later to that very day, after making them suffer through a whole passel of idiotic and painful, tortourous trials, they burned them both at the stake. A reasonably similar kind of thing happened in Selma Lagerlöf's most well-known novella, appropriatley titled The Changeling, in which a young Swedish's woman's child is stolen and replaced by an unruly troll-child, and when the husband sets out to end the young troll's life, his wife nearly dies trying to protect it, even when her house is fairly burning down all around her. The changeling's real mother then sees that her child could be killed if she doesn't do something quick, she comes and gives the human baby back to his mother, in return for her own...

Milla

Author's Note: Before we get started, know that this is an excerpt out of a novel of mine that is currently undergoing publishment, and is therefore protected by a copyrite. So if you steal anything, we WILL come and get you. Yup? This story is hereby dedicated to Janne!

“Incantations were not wanting
Over Sampo and o’er Louhi,
Sampo growing old in singing,
Louhi ceasing her enchantment.
In the songs died wise Wipinen,
At the games died Lemminkainen.
There are many other legends,
Incantations that were taught me…”
—Taken from the Kalevala, national epic of Finland, by Elias Lőnnrot

“Turn your face to the sun and let the shadows fall behind you!”
— Maori proverb

1. In Dubious Memory of Asher N. Redman: 1982 – 2006

For a long time after she discovered his body one cold February night in the dented brown dumpster out behind Charlie’s, the faces of the dead man and his heartbroken girlfriend stayed ingrained in her memory.

She didn’t know their names, and never asked, feeling that it wouldn’t help the situation get any better.

The hard orange-gold light of the streetlamps high above her in the starless black night sky lit up the whole grisly scene below with an unholy network of hundreds of refracted shadows, and made her sick to her stomach. The man’s face was all blood. He didn’t have eyes anymore. His throat had been slit.

While police and ambulance crew alike swarmed continuously like bees over the body of the dead man, his girlfriend, a small woman with pretty dark hair and glasses kept mostly to the sidelines, out of everyone’s way, and the ghastly mask-like expression she wore screamed at Milla, “This is it! This is the end. Life has absolutely nothing left with which to screw me over.” And Milla could understand how the woman must be dying inside, to have something that precious taken away from her so soon.

She had obviously loved this guy, whoever he was, a lot and couldn’t believe that he was gone.

Milla couldn’t believe, either. In all her seventeen years of life this was actually the first dead person she had ever seen. When her grandmother had died five years ago Milla had cried a little and imagined her grandmother’s death as if it was mere sleep. Back then sleep was the only way she thought that death could possibly look like, but now…

She wasn’t so innocent anymore in those respects.

Milla was nearly blown backwards when upon seeing the battered white face in the harsh electric light of the streetlamps and realized that death could, in fact, look something like this, too. But dear Erick was there to support her; he stood steadfastly behind her, hands resting reassuringly on her thin shoulders.

“Don’t look, Milla,” Erick told her soothingly. “Just don’t look.”

Erick was always there for her.

Milla felt sorry for the dark-haired woman who was left to come to terms with her pain alone. Milla would have liked to go over there to where the dead man’s girlfriend was standing, ashen faced and sobbing softly, but her legs for some reason wouldn’t move.

Maybe she should leave the distraught woman alone. But still, Milla couldn’t help but keep on glancing at her, taking in the woman’s infinite misery, wondering what her story was and if she would die soon after this.

“Erick, let me call my parents,” Milla said, head spinning dangerously. She felt as though she was about to faint. The dizziness was unmistakable.

“I called them already, Milla.”

“What? You mean they’re already on their way.”

“No; one of the policemen is going to bring you home tonight. I spoke with one of the officers, and he said that they don’t want anyone else coming into the murder scene, so they’ll take you home.”

Erick’s voice sounded strangely calm, and for a moment Milla almost thought less of him—wasn’t Erick, too, sickened by this sight? God, someone had just been murdered here! But at the same time she knew that Gabriel would have probably been freaking out even worse than her if something like this happened and he was around to see it.

It seemed like things tonight either had to be strictly this way, or that…the entire world was a mess of extremes…

A police officer that happened to be staring at Milla saw how wide and fearful her eyes had become and assumed that the girl was in shock. He turned to the medical workers and called for a blanket. A gray blanket from the ambulance was immediately given to him, and he came over to Milla and concernedly put it around her shoulders.

“Miss,” the police officer said to Milla, though she was barely listening—her eyes were fixed blindly on the murder victim and his dark-haired girlfriend—“If you’re ready I’ll take you home now. I spoke with your parents on the phone and they gave me the directions, so there’s no need for you to worry about that. You just sit in the car and try to relax.”

Vaguely, what the policeman was saying to her registered somewhere in her tortured mind. And Milla said, “Okay. I want to go. Will she be all right?”

The police officer knew that Milla was talking about the young woman.

“Yes, I should think so, in time,” he assured Milla.

However, in truth he had no idea as to whether she would be all right or not. But of course he didn’t let the girl know that.

“You can come with me, then,” he offered kindly.

So Milla nodded good-bye to Erick and followed close behind to the blue-and-white police vehicle that was parked nearby.

And together they left the small pizza restaurant located at the popular corner of Merriman Avenue called Charlie’s, where Milla worked most days after school as a waitress. They drove smooth and sure down the narrow black ribbon of street that frosty night and were gone from the murder scene, which crawled with people, in a few seconds.

During the drive Milla, jackknifed in the front seat, sat wrapped up in her blanket and didn’t speak. She trusted that the officer really did know where he was going.

And he evidently did: because a few minutes later they arrived in the driveway of Milla’s house, where both her parents were waiting already outside in the dark, and she unlatched the door of the police car and ran to meet them.

The Evils of Tanning Beds

Okay, so I've never been a great fan of tanning beds, which have grown to be so freakishly popular in the recent years with girls (and sometimes even guys) across the United States. Everybody knows that tanning beds are the leading cause of the type of skin cancer called melanoma (sp?) in individuals under the age of thirty. I've found that many young women in America, especially, strive for the stereotypical beauty of Land's End models: expensively layered, frosted-blonde hair, blue eyes, and the perfect golden tan one might acquire while on a two-week vacation in the Florida Keys.

I was reading in the newspaper today that a tanning bed owner in London, England, was put in jail for fifty-six days for having faulty sunbeds at her spa. You see, as one of her female clients climbed into the rented sunbed, the canopy came crashing down on her, knocking her out cold with an electric shock. The thirty-five-year-old woman apparently stayed that way for some two and a half hours before she began to vomit, and then woke up in unimaginable pain, finding that she'd gotten second- and third-degree burns on over 65% of her body. She afterwards stopped breathing for a short time, and had to be taken to a local hospital for extreme medical attention. The woman was later allegedly transported to a special burn clinic in Birmingham, where she remained for two days.

The sunbed was later examined by an electrical engineer, who said that the WARNINGS, which were required by law to be placed on the surface of the canopy, were either totally missing, or had been painted over. Live parts of the machine were not suitably protected, and the timers should have been backed up with a secondary device made to act as a fail-safe, if a situation like this should ever occur.

The owner of the tanning firm pleaded guilty to the charge of not having had any of her tanning beds professionally inspected, or inspected at all, for that matter--everything concerning electrical safety and costumer protection legislation had been completley overlooked, and it very nearly cost someone's life.

My real point, though, is simply that tanning beds definitley aren't always what they seem, and if for whatever reason you would like to try one out anyway, I highly reccomend that you check and make sure that the tanning beds are safe and secure in all aspects. Go ahead and ask to see the manager if you've got any worries, large or small; don't be afraid of offending anybody. Screw them. Remember: what you're about to do in that tanning bed may cost you your skin, or even your life. No one wants to wind up one day with incurable skin cancer, nor does anyone want to get trapped and permanantley roasted in a tube of harsh ultraviolet rays.

Get my drift? Tanning beds are absolutey no good, ya'll! Use them not.

Pentru Elena

Elena's scarf is
Hidden away as always.
She gave that to me
A couple of years ago,
Though she knew I hate
The mean blush of thistles.

Once the wind blew cold,
And I saw a tree's branches
Bend until they snapped.
I thought, "Could that happen to me?"

Last Summer Blues

It's a bit funny, and somewhat strange, that for perhaps the first time in my life as a writer, I have a good mind to begin recording my days, now, even if the day I'm thinking of actually happened way back last July, when I was still living in Finland with my friend's family, and life was about as good as it can ever get. The names of those involved in this angry incident have been changed for their protection and only signified with a small asterix at the upper righthand corner, which they don't deserve, but will get anyway because protecting them means protecting someone else, whom I love dearly and don't wish to trouble.

We were at a two-day-long rock festival in Vaasa, Valentina* and I, the one that comes to Vaasa once every year, known to all as Pohjalainen: "Meillä ei luulle, meillä tiedetään". It was wonderful there! It had a really, truly wonderful atmosphere. The music couldn't have been any better. It roared in my ears and resonated throughout my body until I couldn't tell my heartbeat from the base, which pulsated forth like nobody's business from beneath the big dark tent, where Poets of the Fall rocked on with style. I was having so much fun. I hovered around Valentina, her pikkuserkku Mika*, Elsa*, and many others whose names I never had a chance to learn. We were happy. Mika and I had kind of kissed only seconds before, and we were now banging our heads to the music and moving this way and that, possessed by an unholy passion.

Elsa was hanging out with a couple of girls she knew from schools, a very pale blonde chick with too much sparkly eye-makeup on, and someone else with long dark hair tied back in a simply ponytail. They were contentedly talking amongst themselves, and sharing a bottle of tangerine vodka. The smell of that stuff made me twitch, for tangerine vodka just happens to be my favorite alcoholic beverage. And I wondered, will I ever get a taste of that?

At that exact moment, Elsa seemed to read my thoughts. "Would you like to try some?" she asked. And for a long while there, I was really about to give in and perhaps have a few deep swigs--not enough to get myself all shitfaced, mind you--but just enough to give me the slight buzz I was looking for, to make the party even better, or SEEM better anyway, because I already mentioned that the atmosphere and music couldn't have been any better. Glamourie, you might call it. Anybody who knows me well at all knows that I've never indulged in a drink or two to get drunk. I think that drinking should only be done with your friends or lovers as a purely social thing, and never abused in the way some people might want. When Elsa offered me some of her vodka, it was for none other than the reason that I wanted so much to share it with her. I really wanted to, so that I could party and laugh and have fun with all the rest on such a cold and yet bright Finnish summer night.

But then I thought, "Wait". Remember, Rachel. Remember that promise you maid to Dina* last year whenever Valentina let herself get into this kind of trouble. Remember how Dina thinks you're a reasonably good kid, which is most definitley more than most people can say about you. Please consider how much Dina trusts you, as she trusts her firstborn and much-loved daughter, who will otherwise always come first in her heart.

"No thanks, Elsa," I said, carefully hiding the fact that it nearly killed me to turn the tangerine vodka down in such an appropriate time as this. "Damn it," I said to myself. This had better be completley worth it. "That's fine," Elsa said, taking another sip of the fiery liquor. We both knew that there would always be other times for drinking and merrymaking--for we are all Vikings at heart, if not all by blood. (I'm talking about me, here.) We can permit ourselves to go beserk anytime. It's nothing too special.

That bit comforts me to no end in Finland.

In the meantime, however, Valentina gave no thought at all to the fact that she'd also promised her mother, who is a downright saint of God in my eyes, that she wouldn't drink. Dina had placed a great amount of trust and security in her oldest daughter, and fully believed that Valentina would hold up her end of the hasty bargain. But Valentina was a childish and stupid girl. "Come on," she invited me, voice sweet as cloudberries and sugar. "Mother will never know."

The thing is, though, I understood that Dina would most certainly find out, and the consequences of that would NOT, by any means, be good. Hell, any idiot around can tell if someone's been drinking by the smell of it on their breath! But Valentina is so cherished by Dina, that whatever Valentina decides to do, however big a breech of trust it might prove to be, she'll be forgiven in an instant. Dina loves Valentina so much. If only my mother cared about me like that...

And so, Valentina, against her Dina's wishes, sipped some of Elsa's wonderful tangerine vodka, as well as a little of what everybody else present had to offer, including Mika's containers of Lapin Kulta. Not that Valentina had anywhere near enough of the booze to make her legally drunk, but all the same, Dina found out about the drinking the very moment Valentina got into the car with me to go home, just as I'd predicted and warned Valentina of earlier--and all this happened AFTER I'd spent two Euros to buy Valentina some ice cream to sort of mask the unfortunate matter on her breath.

A lot later that night, Dina asked me whether or not Valentina had went against her rules and drank. I told Doma nothing but the truth of what Valentina had done, and hoped that Dina would at least be both pleased and grateful that I hadn't breeched her sacred trust as well, when her own daughter failed miserably in doing so. I told Dina how her daughter had said right into my face, "Mother will never know." So, Dina spoke to Valentina about all the events of that night...they sorted it all out in the end, but Dina made a new rule that Valentina could no longer go to the awesome dance place right by their house, near Oulu, as punishment. Valentina accepted that, I guess, for a time.

But Valentina had the power to wrap her mother right around her little finger, and get her own way, whatever it took! The NEXT FUCKING WEEK, Dina allowed Valentina go to that dance place, and walk there by herself, even, while I was made to stay at home in her stead. I took Valentina's punishment, and never said a word in my own defense. Lord knows, I love Dina more than my own life. But the woman's an over-indulgent, workaholic, and she spoils Valentina beyond reason. I can't even begin to say how angry I was at both Dina and Valentina then, and how I seethe over it still, nearly a full year later. The pain hasn't faded. I was gypped, and gypsies should never be gypped! That pisses me off.

Valentina can't even dance. I can. I love to dance, and to have fun with my friends, more than anything in the world, almost, that comes to my mind immediatley. Valentina continually wastes the power and smoke of that dance place with her running around, rule-breaking, and general disfunction. I can make all the other dances smile, in a GOOD way. Valentina's just one of the commong hord. (Hoard?) So what if my Finnish isn't as good as that of a Finland native...?

That's all I have to say today, I'm afraid. It's 6/6/06, and you know what that means. I don't want to take any uncessicary chances with anything on such a clearly inauspicious date. *crosses herself* I've vented out all of a solid hour's rage, and that goes well enough with me.

The Word Wall

"Angel was here,
But now she's gone.
She left her name
To carry on.
Those who knew her
Knew her well.
Those who didn't
Can go to hell."

I first read those words when I was ten years old, scrawled out in slightly-smudged pencil on an otherwise totally white wall underneath a staircase in the gymnasium of my old middle school. I thought it was a rather strange, and yet definitley intriguing little poem. I couldn't help but wonder who had written it there, and how long ago. The poem was niether signed nor dated, anywhere, when most people here in my city like to do both to their own works of graffiti. So, I told Amanda, a girl I knew and was friends with at the time, to look at the poem and tell me if she knew who might have composed it, since Amanda had always been strongly reputed to have common dealings with everybody in the entirety of A.C. Reynolds Middle. But of course, Amanda didn't know, and I hadn't much expected her to...

I learned through certain sources, a few years later, surprisingly enough, that the "Angel" poem was written about a girl of that name who had been killed in a car accident somewhere across town. Angel had been the same age I am now at the time of her death, and like me, she'd lived her life completley unnoticed by the world around her.

What was wrong? Why was that? Everyone deserves to be noticed. Everyone deserves to be...understood, if possible, and liked. There's absolutley no telling how many people would find that their lives are really worth living if they'd only open their mouths, speak, and find that they have something in common with another human being. (That's the best way I can possibly put it, I think.)

The student who wrote the words to Angel's poem had written it as an act of discreet graffiti, rather than get it published in, let's say, the school yearbook so that at least one person would look at the short poem, read it, and finally realize that the girl called Angel meant the world to one, albeit anonymous, someone.

Ah, in living, you encounter such strange and memorable things! Angel once lived here on this small blue planet, with you and me. And now she's long gone. I hope that wherever that girl is now, she's being dealt credit for all the wonderful things she did when we had her in a more tangeable way. I certainly wish I could've known her, now. Don't you?