Kisses on the Inside

... One of the kids said, 'How many times does it flap its wings in a
minute?'
'Must be millions', said another kid.
Anna dashed indoors
humming a low-pitched hum. I was sitting on the doorstep. With a few quick prods
at the piano she had identified the note, her hum and the drone of the bee.
Coming to the door again, she said, 'Can I have your slip-stick?' In a moment or
two she shouted out, 'A bee flaps its wings such-and-such times a second.'
Nobody believed her, but she was only a few counts out.
... 'Mister God made
everything, didn't he?'
There was no point in saying anything that I didn't
really know. I said 'Yes'.
'Even the dirt and the stars and the animals and
the people and the trees and everything, and the pollwogs?' The pollywogs were
those little creatures that we had seen under the microscope.
I said, 'Yes,
he made everything.'
She nodded her agreement. 'Does Mister God love us
truly?'
'Sure thing', I said. 'Mister God loves everything.'
'Oh', she
said. 'Well then, why does he let things get hurt and dead?' Her voice sounded
as if she felt she had betrayed a sacred trust, but the question had been
thought and it had to be spoken.
'I don't know', I replied. 'There's a great
many things about Mister God that we don't know about.'
'Well then,' she
continued, 'if we don't know many things about Mister God, how do we know he
loves us?'
I could see this was going to be one of those times, but thank
goodness she didn't an answer ot her question for she hurried on: 'Them
pollywogs, I could love them till I bust, but they wouldn't know, would they?
I'm million times bigger than they are and Mister God is millions times bigger
than me, so how do I know what Mister God does?'
She was silent for a little
while. Later I thought that at this moment she was taking her last look at
babyhood. Then she went on:
'Fynn, Mister God doesn't love us.' She
hesitated. 'He doesn't really, you know, only peole can love. I love Bossy, but
Bossy don't love me. I love the pollywogs, but they don't love me. I love you,
Fynn, and you love me, don't you?'
I tightened my arm about her.
'You
love me because we are people. I love Mister God truly, but he don't love me.'
It sounded like a death-knell. 'Damn and blast', I thought. 'Why does this
have to happen to people" Now she's lost everything.' But I was wrong. She had
got both feet planted firmly on the next stepping-stone.
'No', she went on,
'no, he don't love me, not like you do, it's different, it's millions of times
bigger.'
I must have made some movement or noise for she levered herself
upright and sat on her haunches and giggled. Then she launched herself at me and
undid my little pang of hurt, cut out the useless spark of jealousy with the
delicate sureness of a surgeon.
'Fynn, you can love better than any of the
people that ever was, and so can I, can't I? But Mister God is different. You
see, Fynn, poeple can only love outside and can only kiss outside, but Mister
God can love you right inside, and Mister God can kiss you right inside, so it's
different. Mister God aint like us; we are a little bit like Mister God, but not
much yet.'

- Anna, in Mister God, This is Anna by Fynn

I must have this book.