THE SNAKES AND LADDERS OF TIME

She gasps
at the faded photograph.


A crease
hides my smile


"What...you. . . you
were four?"

She's never considered
this before.

I smile at her
disbelief

that this fat old man
could ever have been

surely not
her age.

She acts as if she is
the first four ever to be.

Ahhhhh the snakes
and ladders of time.

"Oh it's a long time since
I was four...but four...I was for sure!"

I laugh at her
incredulity.

"So where did your four go!"
she asks like a defence lawyer

turning to the judge and jury
of her lined up dolls.

"And how did you get so old?"
she clinches the conversation convincingly.

Yes...where did I go
I question myself.

Four year olds never die
I tell my self.

They play hide and seek in
the minds of fat old men.

Popping mischievously up
with a now and then yell.

"Here I
be!"

"But if you were four
once upon a time ago..."

I feel her argument
close about me.

"Then you should know why
I don't want to go to bed!"

I check with my former four year old self
and sure enough he says: "Yup!"

I have to admit she
has got me...there.

Trapped by my child's
impeccable logic...******!

And so we have 4
extra Snakes and Ladders

played with all her
extreme hysteria.

Stops only
when I fall asleep.

She covers me with a towel
from the bathroom.

Puts her self
to bed thank you very much.

Tells Mummy
"Shhhhhhhh...

Daddy's
sleeping!