Dear Sept,
You’ve been playing a lot lately. You turn everything into spacecraft.
Sometimes, your games look painful.
I asked you about it.
“This isn’t the good ship,” you said. “This is a very bad ship!”
You made engine-sputter noises and shrill shrieks and crashes and the sounds of explosions.
The sound effects alone were terrifying.
Whenever you play with RedCarSpaceShip, the game ends in a crash, with you screaming in a hushed, echoing, falsetto that sounds like the cries of a hundred infants.
“Have you ever met anyone who didn’t come here on a spaceship?” you asked me.
“Of course,” I replied.
You shook your head. “NoIdon’tmeananyonelikeeveryone–”
“Spaces,” I reminded.
“I don’t mean anyone like everyone,” you said, slowly. “I don’t mean like Miko and Darling. I mean…” You looked puzzled. “Like so, me and the bizoopagotogo, we came on the bad spaceship that crashed, right?”
I nodded.
“But what about the others like me?” you asked. “How did they get here?”
“What others like you?” I asked in return.
And then you told me about images you’d been seeing.
Small children, blue like you, in a room with lots of toys.
An older girl, nearly as big as Miko. Another girl, as big as you. And one more little one.
“There are stars,” you said. “Are there stars inside houses? I keep seeing stars.”
“Where are they?” I asked.
“They’re in a room with stars and toys and something delicious. Like maybe spaghetti. Can we have spaghetti?”
I asked you if they were your bizoopagotogo, and you said, no. They were pajotojo and bajotojo.
“That’s how come I don’t know how they got here. Did they come on another ship?”
I didn’t know what to tell you. So many of the questions you ask have answers I don’t know. You’re starting to accept that.
This evening, after supper (we had spaghetti), I watched you playing in the park with Kizuu.
“Kizuu isn’t a cat,” you told me. “Kizuu is the good ship. The good ship Kizuu-Cat! It runs on purr power!”
You held your finger above the ship like a transporter beam.
“Ti, pi, ki, ji, li, ri, fi, di, zi, ni, bi, tui!” you counted. You kept counting to one hundred.
Then Kizuu The Good Ship floated on the strains of your song.
“Home, home!
It’s got spaghetti…
“Home, home!
My little night light…
“Home, home!
Bring the stars inside
“Home, home!
Safe. Home!”
You landed Kizuu down so softly onto the ground, and I could feel your feelings of peace inside.
“That’s how it’s supposed to be,” you said. “Can I sleep outside?”
It’s a funny habit you’ve developed, sleeping on the bench in the park next door. But I think I understand it.
For one thing, our neighborhood is safe, and I’m right here.
For another, when you are with me, inside our home, we form our own world of just the two of us. But when you are out, with the stars to amplify your transmissions, you have connections with all your gotogo and jotojo. You aren’t alone, under the stars.
I went inside to put fresh sheets on your bed, after writing this letter to you. I’ll let you sleep out there for a little longer, and then, when the cool night air crawls up from the river, I’ll carry you back inside, in our world in our home, and I’ll tuck you in.
Since we’ve found your some of your siblings, you don’t seem like an orphan anymore. You seem like a member of a big, loving family. I’m happy you’re letting me join it, too.
Your loving pops.
Author’s note: Many thanks to kkira555 of KK’s Sims Stories for the telepathic transmissions from the jotojo!
Cathy Tea's SimLit Anthology 