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by D. Cashon Klein
Moving day was a nightmare. The night
before I lie huddled in a fetal position in a half-packed living
room. Empty boxes circled me like wagons on a prairie as I
whimpered on the floor. I don't do moving very well.
Anyway, the morning after my fetal
position move, I was unpacking boxes in the carport of my current
home. I would pull something out of a box, wander through the
house, set the thing down in one room, pick it up, wander into
another room, set it down, pick it up, and bring it back out to the
carport. Some time after the third or fourth box I heard a little
voice yell from the house next to mine. "NEXT NEIGHBOR! NEXT
NEIGHBOR!" I turned to see a little blonde sprite rushing toward
me. Her hair was in a tangle. Her pink outfit betrayed signs of a
hard day's play, as did her little hands and feet, which were
dirtier than I expected from Florida sand.
It always amazes me when I see people down
here in bare feet. To me, walking barefoot in Florida is an Xtreme
sport, not unlike jumping off buildings strapped to a hang glider.
I played in my bare feet in Ohio when I was a kid, but the grass
was soft and thick. The only hazards were bees and "stickers," a
prickly, starfish shaped weed that was pretty easy to see, and
thus, avoid.
The terrain in this part of the world is
hazardous. There are millions of sand spurs that hide like sharp
little land mines in the "grass" and sand. There are mounds and
mounds of ants. Some bite, and others shoot liquid fire into all
exposed parts of your body. There are baby lizards that have not
yet learned how to avoid giant beings tromping through their world.
There are snakes. I stare at my well-shod feet when I walk to avoid
all of these things. I have run into trees.
Yet, here before me was this happy,
barefooted, fairy of a child dashing back and forth through
God-knows-what, firing a hundred questions at me. "Next neighbor,
do you live here? Why are you here? Do you work? Do you know my
pop-pop? My pop-pop lives there (pointing). What are you doing? Why
are you putting that box there? What's in the box? Do you like
flowers?"
Her energy was astounding. She crouched
and pointed at a slug. "Eeeyooo! Next neighbor! Look at that!
What's that?" I told her THAT was a slug. She wanted to know what
a slug was. I told her a slug was a homeless snail. She wanted to
know where he left his home. I told her that perhaps he was moving
to a new home. The slug was in a little puddle of water at the edge
of the carport. She turned and dashed next door, only to return
moments later with a jar. She picked up the slug, sniffed it, and
dropped it into the jar.
"The slug will die in there." I told her.
"He'll get thirsty and dry up." I explained that the slug would be
happier in the shade. The idea that slugs know happiness is a
philosophical argument really, and I wasn't sure my new neighbor
was up for that particular discussion. Do 4-year-olds ponder such
things? She walked next door and dumped the slug into what I
assumed was pop-pop's garden. I was SURE he would be pleased about
that. "Don't tell your pop-pop that you found a new home for Mr.
Slug, OK?" She asked me why. I pretended not to hear her.
The days went by. I managed to settle in
without being Baker-Acted into a facility. I learned that the
little sprite's name was Savanna, and that she lived with her mom
and big brother at "pop-pop's" house. Pop-pop is her grandfather,
a man with an impressive green thumb. Every day when I get home
from work she yells "HI next neighbor!" She asks me how my day was
at work, and if I was tired. She asks me this because my usual
answer to her is that I'm tired.
One afternoon she helped me water the
plants. I had things in the house I needed to do, and a phone call
to make, so I told her I had to go inside. "I could help you next
neighbor," she said. I told her I really needed to do things by
myself. Ignoring this, she said she'd be right back to help me,
and she ran home. I ducked into the house. As I was talking on the
phone I could hear her as she went to every window and door yelling
"Next neighbor! Next neighbor!"
I was hiding from a little girl. I am not
proud of this. There I was, whispering into the phone, ducking
below the windowsills.
A few days later I was outside when
Savanna said "Hi next neighbor! Are you tired?" She was with her
pop-pop. "Savanna, he said, you can call her Debbie. That's her
name." As I listened to him correct her, I had a thought. "That's
all right Mike. I like it when she calls me next neighbor."
It occurred to me that I had been
someone's next neighbor for a very long time. It seemed a fitting
name, coined by a very astute and tenacious garden sprite.
Debbie Cashon Klein is a Safety Harbor
resident.
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