Mud Pie

Do we only value what we see, or do we appreciate so much more?

Delicacy was required for the task-at-hand. Precision had to be maintained to result in the component being round. The hands moved around the mixture, to give it just the right appearance. Success was the only achievement desired. 

She didn't take her eyes off her job for one minute. She continued to smooth and shape the object as she saw fit until by her perception, it came across as round. She felt contentment. 

The scruffing sound of little sandaled feet didn't distract her. The sound stopped in her presence, but she continued on. She heard a bit of a heavy sigh, then was aware the person had sat down across from her. 

"I need," she started, then paused, "I need another one, like this one. Here's the water," she said without being asked, pointing to a can. 

"You making a cake?" the visitor asked. 

The conversation erupted. 

"It's gonna be a cake, a birthday, a birthday cake for here," she said, pointing at the concrete brick half resting in her arms length. 

"A chocolate cake," the other person said.

"I need another one, to stack them up."

"I want to make one, Darneja," the second girl said. 

"That's the water, and here's some mud already made, and there's some more dirt."

"I'll make one, too."

"I need another one like this one, and there's the water." 

"We're makin' a birthday cake, Darneja?" 

"We're makin' a cake for . . . . . , " Darneja paused again and reached for a couple of empty bottles. 

"This is me," she said of the orange bottle with a crudely magic markered facial expression drawn upon it, "and this can be you, Angela," handing over an empty pink bottle with a dent in the base, as well as an equally similar countenance also illustrated on the front.

"That one is me," the child said with laughter. 

"We'll put them here, at the table," alluding to the brick, "where they can have their cake."

"Where we can have our cake," Angela corrected. 

"Where we can have our cake." 

The two girls sat on the ground, splashing and scooping up dirt and mud between them. If the mud dried out a bit, they'd mix in some water to make it shiny once more. The top cake layer had broken sticks placed upon it to simulate candles. It was nobody's birthday. 

"It's a birthday cake," Darneja declared. She placed a rock on a second round layer of mud. For decoration. 

Not at all surprising, they became very saturated in water and mud. Their hands appeared as if they were wearing brown gloves. The seat of their pants were dirty. Knees as well. 

A blonde curl persisted in dangling in Angela's face, so finally she reached her hand up and pushed it aside, streaking mud across her forehead and into her hair. Instinctively, she reached up to wipe the mud off, completely forgetting she was now just smearing more mud across her forehead. 
"Haha. You got mud on your face," Darneja told her. 

She looked at Darneja, who was once again busy with the earth before her, and Angela reached up to begin smearing mud across her forehead, from one side to the other. 

She brought her hand down, swirled it in some more mud, then took her hand to her face again, this time covering her cheek, across her nose to the other cheek, and bringing it around her chin and jaw. She did so as quickly and quietly as possible. Now she waited for Darneja to notice. 

"This'll be the," Darneja started about some more pebbles she'd picked up. "This'll be the decorations, the decorations on the," she got out before she realized Angela had grown quiet. She looked at the girl opposite her, a large toothy grin from missing teeth on her face with mud splattered in various locales. 

"What you . . . ?" Darneja started as Angela began to giggle. Darneja began to smile and laugh, too. 

"What are you doing? Look at you." 

They both began to laugh. 

"You should see you. Look at you," Darneja said again. 

"What do I look like?" Angela asked. 

Darneja looked about and called Angela over to a nearby automobile where she could see her reflection. The two girls stood and raced toward the car, but once they got there, Angela noticed the rear view mirror. 

"Yea, look there," Darneja instructed. 

Angela looked at her face as tho she had completely transformed and was no longer the same child. 

"I look like you," she said laughing. Darneja laughed too. 

"I'm Darneja!" 

"You're me!" 

"I'm you!" 

All spoken and interspersed with laughter. 

"I'm you! You're me! I'm Darneja! You're Darneja! I'm Angela!" was repeated over and over in hysterics. 

Angela looked in the mirror again as if to smooth out the mud and cover any visible facial areas remaining. 

"Here, let me," Darneja said, trying to smooth over the facial areas a bit better since she could see them better. She covered over a few, then the two girls heard the shrill command. 

"Angela! Come home!" 

"I got to go! Where can I wash my face off?" 

"Over here," Darneja said, pointing to the outdoor faucet she had been using to get water. The girls got to the faucet and turned it on. Darneja still had the green rag she'd been using, so they soaked it and wiped at Angela's face to remove the mud. Likewise, Angela splashed water upon her face as well. 

Once again, there was laughter in playing in the water like this, but Angela hurried to complete the task. Her flower print dress was nearly drenched down the front. 

"Am I clean?" Angela asked. 

"Wait," Darneja said. "You still got some more by your ear." 

Darneja gave the rag to Angela and she wiped at the brown smear. 

It didn't go away. In fact, it became bigger. 

"Did I get it?" 

Darneja could only stare at the side of Angela's face in puzzlement. She took the rag from Angela and slowly but firmly wiped the area again and once more, the brown smudge expanded across and down Angela's cheek. 

Darneja looked at the rag to see if there was any mud on it, perhaps that was what was coming off onto her face. 

There was nothing. 

"Is my face clean?" Angela asked. 

"It's . . . . go look in the mirror," Darneja said. She reached back and turned off the faucet. She then followed Angela over to the car to see her response. 

Angela looked in the mirror at the marking and was confused as well. She took the rag from Darneja and wiped again. Now nearly the entire side of her face was brown, from temple chin. The area was just getting grander in size. 

"Angela!" her mother called from the door again. 

Darneja looked at Angela and they said nothing as they parted. Angela dropped the rag on the sidewalk. 

Darneja watched her get further and further away, until she reached her front door and vanished within, once the door closed. She simply stood there, alone and quiet. She wasn't at all sure what all had happened and when a child is confused, then turn to the adult in their life for an explanation, so Darneja went home as well. She gave one final glance to the door on Angela's home, then made her way to her own dwelling. 

"Darneja, you are filthy!" her mother exclaimed when Darneja entered. She didn't know why her mother was stating the obvious. She had other things puzzling her right now. 

But her mother proved to be of no assistance as she ushered Darneja to the bathroom and began running the hot water with soap bubbles. Darneja undressed and climbed into the stinging water and just sat there, running the soap and wash cloth over her face, spitting out bubbles, then she'd look at her reflection in the crome faucet. She was still the same color, no matter how much she washed. She washed again. Same results. 

She made her way out of the tub, dried with the towel, then dressed. She gave one last look in the mirror at herself. Her color hadn't changed. It hadn't lightened. She was the same. The only thing she could determine was the skin emerging on Angela's face seemed to be darker than her own. 

"Darneja! Dinner!" 

Darneja made her way to the table where sat her parents and older brother. She in turn joined them. Various foods and vegetables were placed on plates, passed around to receiving hands. 

"Daddy?" she began. 

"Yes, baby." 

"Angela and I made mud pies today outside." 

"And got absolutely filthy," her mother interjected. 

Her father laughed. 

"Something happened." 

"What happened, baby?" her mother now asked. 

"You eat a pie?" the brother inquired with a smile. 

"No, Angela covered her face with mud and said she was me." 

The parents looked on with concern, fearing Darneja had encountered an inappropriate term at her young age. Alas far from it. 

"Uh oh, what'cha done said?" 

"Quiet, Henry," their father said. 

"Darneja, what happened?" their mother asked. 

"We went to wash it off and Angela's face seemed to change from white to black, like ours. It couldn't do that, could it?" 

Henry was snickering some more. 

"Henry, hush!" 

The parents looked at one another with stern expressions. 

Henry looked at his parents with a grin, then noted how serious they were. 

"What?"

"We thought we might have this talk with you, Henry, when you got a bit older, but now it seems we have to discuss it with both of you." 

"What? Sex?"

"No, Henry. Race."

Angela sat quiet. 

"I know about that," Henry clipped. "We gotta watch ourselves around them."

"No, Henry, not that. Yes, we have to be careful in situations," their father started, "but there's more." 

"Like what?" Henry asked. 

Mother stood and made her way to the kitchen. She returned with some slices of bread. 

Father simply looked at her as he still held his fork. 

"What, daddy?" Darneja asked. 

There was a heavy sigh from the man, and slowly and clearly he spoke. 

"Henry, Darneja. There are no white people. They don't exist." 

Silence. 

"What you see as white people, they are really black people, like us, who simply want to come across differently."

"Different how? As two-faced?" 

"No, son. Well, some may take it that way, but it just seems to affect them in different ways. Some are cruel. Some are stuck up. Some look down upon others." 

"Us," Henry stated, matter-of-factly. 

"Why do they want to be different by being white?" Darneja asked as she put some string beans in her mouth. 

"They feel it adds something to them. Makes them different." 

"In a better way," Henry said again. He thought for a moment, "how in the world do they change themselves?" 

"With medicines, diet, usually very early on in infancy. It takes better hold when they do it long enough, into their old age." 

"And then set out in the sun like that is going to make them brown again?" 

"They like to test it. Like they are challenging it to change back, and proving that it won't." 

Darneja stared across the room, unblinking. 

"Honey, are you okay?"

"Yea, momma. Just thinking about Angela today. Does she know? She didn't seem to know."

"They don't really tell their children so much as to what is going on, not until they are older do they explain their reasons and actions to them." 

"I'll see what she knows tomorrow," Darneja said. Her parents sat silent, already with suspicions as to what was taking place. Finally, her father spoke. 

"Well, honey, usually this isn't something the white ones like to discuss. They don't want to talk about the notion of us being exactly the same." 

Darneja fell asleep that night, thinking about Angela now truly being like her, or maybe Angela was already like her and always had been. 

The next morning, Darneja goes out to look around the neighborhood. There wasn't much going on. No one was in the area, except for movement in front of Angela's home. Darneja couldn't make out what exactly it was, with the large van in front of the dwelling. 

It seemed the strangers were putting chairs and boxes into the back of the van. Darneja got the impression Angela's parents were leaving, and Angela would be going with them. Already she noticed their car was not parked in its usual spot. The two men then came back to either side of the front of the truck, which was facing away from the complex, and entered on each side. The truck cranked up and they drove away. 

Darneja stood in silence, looking at the obviously vacant dwelling where Angela had resided. 

"If they are discovered," Darneja's mother had said last night, "they don't want anybody to know, so they'll just leave. It's just too important to them that everyone see them as white."  

She turned her attention to where all the complexities had begun; the small section of mud in the far corner next to the sidewalk. She walked toward the location, to observe it once more. As the area came into view, she saw the mud pie, still sitting on the brick, twigs simulating candles, but noticed what was absent. 

The smiley faced bottles were no longer at the side of the brick. Darneja cast her eyes around a bit, to see where they might be, but at no time did the pink bottle or orange bottle materialize. Slowly she looked back, turned some more, to view the now empty dwelling where Angela had lived just yesterday.  

She looked back to where the plastic bottles had resided, and were no longer there. 

It was then she saw the wash rag, the object to bring about all the revelation, sitting beside the brick, folded up into squares, where it had not been yesterday. 

The day before, Darneja thought, Angela had dropped it on the pavement. She looked back to where she last saw the wash rag yesterday, then gazed upon it once more here, folded up and beside the brick, where the two missing bottles had been. 

Darneja picked up the rag and even noticed now it was clean. 

Slowly she turned and took the rag back to her home. She'd find a suitable place for it, where it would be safe, the source of Darneja and Angela being declared the same, and as she thought about Angela taking the two bottles, always to serve as a reminder of them to her. 

Darneja walked further away from the mud hole, now drying out in the brightness of day, where the artificial pie sat, undisturbed after seemingly serving its purpose to the makers.