K is for Kept

For the month of April I will be taking part in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. I will be using two tools besides my trusty computer - my imagination and my dictionary -The American Heritage Dictionary, Second College Edition.. I will turn to the letter of the day, flip the pages and let my fickle finger of fate find the word. Then I'll write - might be a story, might be a rant, might be a poem. Who knows! Do let me know what you think. To go to the list of other participants go here *** I'm number 1414 - that's a heck of a lot of blogs and there are many more signed up below me. If you make a comment I will do my darnedest to check out your blog and comment. Spread the love around!


Kept - v. past tense and past participle of keep (1. to retain possession of)


I am kept in a little box and only brought out on special occasions. Once it was for a visit by a very important person. I cannot remember his name. I didn't need to say anything - just smile and twirl about and show off my ribbons and silks. The box is very nice - or so I am told. I cannot remember where I was born - apparently it was in an alley, whatever that might be. This box - they don't call it that - they call it 'your quarters' but I have a book with words and I know that is what it is - has a place for me to sleep with quilts of satin and pillows filled with the down of some sort of flying thing. A bird it is called - I have never seen one except for in my book. There is a little pot for me to do my business in and a tiny table that my meal is put on twice a day. Whatever a day is. The old person who comes in to care for me says nonsense - you know what a day is - I come with your morning meal at the start of the day and your evening meal at the end of the day. Then you sleep - that is night. When I ask her how she knows, she scowls at me and says because the sun comes out and wakes her up in her little shed outside the palace. What is the sun, I ask? She groans and tells me not to make her crazy. When I'm not eating or sleeping or doing my business I read my book. Someone taught me to read a long time ago - I cannot remember them but the old person told me that it was a man, that is to say someone different in the genitals than me - and that he was hired by the King to teach me to read as the King cannot abide fools. Then he was put to death. Whatever that is. The old person weeps whenever she tells me this story and I don't know why. I will be sixteen soon. That means I will have lived sixteen times twelve full moons. I have never seen a moon but I understand it is as big as my thumbnail and also as big as the palace. I don't understand this and I don't think the old person does either. She gets very annoyed when I ask how that can be. When I turn sixteen I will be given to a person who lives in a different palace and kept in a bigger box. I might be allowed to grow girls of my own if I am good. I will be.