Twinkle Eats Dried Poop

Another day in the Desert. I watch a child play in her bedroom within an 11-story apartment building. She sits on a colorful rug. She is in-between worlds, not a little kid, not still a toddler. She has blond curls and wears a striped dress in green, white, and sea blue with 6 little fishes crossing the front in a row. The rug fills the large room. Its bright orange and green borders frame two panda bears eating bamboo. The girl answers to the name, "Gretel."

She stands up. "Ow," she says, grabbing her bum. "That hurt." She grabs a tall and pink hard-covered book, then stands it up on top of a flat panda's head on the floor. She begins to grab more books off of the drab and brown bookshelf, standing them up around a pink plastic bucket. The bucket is upside down. It has Easter eggs on it. There's a mouse hole cut through its brim which rests on the carpet.

"Makin' a little house out of my books," she discloses, not stopping in her tracks. She wasn't asked, and her report is delivered with a matter-of-fact voice that seems serious and mature, despite the fact its pitch and tilt betray one so small. She's about 3 and a half feet tall. Gretel has set down small blankets, belonging to one of her dolls, and a wash cloth on 2 square boards, making a sort of "red carpet". They're shelves really, the 2 square pieces of board-- shelves of an old cupboard-- she sets her brown and white curly-haired guinea pig among the hallway of books. The standing books are spread eagle, their ends just touching one another. They remind me of Jan Švankmajer's "Alice"-- the end bit, where the Queen of Hearts card lines up with her henchmen.

"I'm keeping her warm," says Gretel as she covers "Twinkle" with a dolly blanket and the cobalt-colored washcloth. And just as the guinea pig starts nibbling on Gretel's books, she exclaims, "Oh no! That's not dinner for you!" She removes the book with small white hands. Dolls hands-- 8 other books remain. The guinea pig moves on to the next pages. "Oh no!" She then knocks the rest of her hallway of books down. Standing up, she turns toward me see a heart clip holding back her hair. "Is my ponytail in the middle?" Twinkle continues to bounce around the rug, its curly hair looking like it was crimped under crimping irons. "They really like their new home, huh?" Gretel indicates the large cage on the edge of the rug. She puts Twinkle inside. Twinkle spreads her claws and seems to resist. "There, there. Time for bed now soon. . ." she pauses, and then, "I'm so happy for my new family." Gretel brought her new pets home yesterday.

The little girl begins to hum while simultaneously chewing broccoli and noodles, the butter from her bite making her lips shine. She seems to be making up the tune as she waddles backward, her hands on the floor swinging like a gorilla. She steps from book to book like a frog on the surface of a pond, jumping from lily pad to lily pad. She scoops them up, begins to stack them. After only a moment, she stands up and moves toward Twinkle and Sally's cage and begins to arranges the small log within. Then she resumes walking on all fours, her rear end sky high as she stacks and stacks the books. It takes about 5 minutes for her to stack 5 books. She farts, stands up without saying anything or looking embarrassed, and moves the stack toward her bookshelf about 2 feet away. "My hands feel like they're feeling guinea pigs." She turns toward me. I scribble away furiously to record these observations. "It feels weird. Like bologna." Gretel doesn't eat bologna. In fact, I know that her mother has never even bought bologna. She cups a small hand up to her left ear, as though she's listening to the sea inside of a seashell. Then she puts the rest of her books away.

Walking back toward me, finished with the books and about to go to bed, Gretel notices a few bits of poop amongst some strikingly similar food pellets. I indicate that some are poop and some are food. Gretel says, "These are dried poop. And Twinkle and Sally like dried poop, because they just eat dried poop." She scoops the pellets and poop up together with a few squares of toilet paper. "It's squishy," Gretel's voice trails off as she walks down the hall to the bathroom.