When the Pixies left

By Sally M. Peabody

The simple innocence of a young child's imagination is a wondrous thing. They find peace and strength in what they pretend to believe in. Building homes for pixies they never see. Still this daily duty is dedicated to keeping these tiny friends safe and dry. Food and water are left each evening to ensure they never leave. But children grow, and life is full of changes. Eventually the pixies do leave. Peace slips away as life begins. Things become complicated. Innocence is lost. There are choices. Many forks in the road. When you end up on the wrong path, it is cluttered and full of obstacles. When the pixies left, the road became rocky, and life became harder with each poor choice. The child is lost, and the adult who emerges scrambles to find a replacement for the peace once known.

For many, it comes in the form of addiction. When the Pixies Left is about this struggle to overcome addiction and to learn to live in a world you never gave yourself a chance to know.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jun 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9781681399645

Book preview

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I do not remember ever having all of my five older sisters with us at one time back then. My father, whom we all adorned, was rarely home for dinner. He was a surgeon. A godlike one in our eyes. My mother did not eat with us either. She waited for Daddy to come home. This was a good time. When it snowed we went sledding, and when summer came we spent the free months at one of our three beach houses. At this young age it was the Barefoot Trader. My father could come up with the coolest of names for his toys. Since he was a thoracic or chest surgeon, our boat was later named The Rib Tickler. A fitting name for a Bertram Trojan.

These summer months were like every child’s dream. This was the time I could gather my collection of tiny shells to bring back to use as plates and bowls for my pixies’ meals. Dad could only join us for a week here and there, he worked so much, but those were the adventurous times. We crabbed in the bay and went to the boardwalk or took long walks at night along the waves.

Dragging our feet in the fine sand we collected the blowfish left to die by the fishermen. These we would smuggle back into the house to live shortly in our bathtub. I especially remember the routine of eating Josh’s fresh, hot doughnuts while studying the empty morning shoreline.

The ride to the beach was a story in itself; we had so much fun. My sisters would sing in harmony, and my dad would join in. My mother would only sing after opening the infamous black box that came along on all of our trips. When it was opened we all knew the song to sing. Oh yeah, it’s Gimlet time. Oh yeah, it’s Gimlet time… This came complete with minionions and everything.

Often we went on skiing trips in the winter. During the drive my dad would sing to Frank Sinatra until that good ole box appeared, and we all knew what song came next. We sang it with pride knowing that my mom knew the words and would happily sing along.

My father, the Rib Tickler, could be a proficient storyteller. He read Edgar Allen Poe with such expression and strength. I would find myself mesmerized between verses with the exuberant look in his gleaming eyes. There were many stories. Some about me. The ones that were relevant were about my having had my stomach pumped three different times before I was even three years of age.

I was crafty they laughed. I would open the drawers of a dresser to create a staircase and climb to the top. Once there I was able to reach the fingernail-polish remover. I drank it down. I also swallowed white iodine and even ate the disinfectant from my diaper pail. Now, I suppose this behavior was viewed as disturbing to some. That never occurred to me at the time. I did not remember any of it, so it was just another funny story to me. Besides, my mother called the fire department when my sister got a pearl stuck way up her nose by mistake. I would have called the fire department for any medical emergency too. Made sense to me.

An awful lot of my time was spent lying on the floor between the kitchen and the front door. I would rock back and forth moving myself forward until I hit the end. I would then turn around and do it all the way back over and over again. This seemed like hours just spent dreaming. Of what, I do not remember. My sisters would simply step over me. It was perfectly normal because no one teased me. This was the most calming and enjoyable thing I knew. It was how I fell asleep at night while my only younger brother bounced his head. A two-man band playing their unsung song.

The holidays were always such fun. We went to many family parties. There were so many relatives of all ages. This meant a lot of glasses half-full sitting everywhere. I would wander about until I found one sitting alone and sip from it. My throat burned as it went down, but I finished it all anyway. I enjoyed these treats and looked forward to finding one. I guess I was five or six years old, but it came so naturally to me that I think this had been my routine for a very long time. I also enjoyed my mother’s orange juice she kept by her bed in the mornings. One big gulp before I left for school. That would be kindergarten, of course.

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We moved to a new house when I started first grade. This would be a famous house from the architect who designed it, my sister who decorated it, and to what went on in this house in the years to come. There was one huge problem for me. There was no moss to be found anywhere. No pixies. No houses to build. My life was changing for sure. In boredom I was eating more. Most often alone it seemed. No one was ever around, or my mother was asleep in her room. One day I came home from school, and I ate almost a whole loaf of cinnamon toast. That moment stuck out in my mind. That day in third grade. I became aware of choices, and in this case it was a poor one. I had never binged on food before. I never knew I was allowed to. I felt sick. Way too full. It did not feel right. It felt sinful. I went upstairs and rocked in my bed until I fell asleep. Until the fullness went away.

I was lonely. I now had a conscious body image, and I did not like what looked back at me from the mirror. Someone called me fat. I had to stop rocking because no one would ever marry me. I wanted to be a nun so I would not have to do taxes. Tax time was not a pleasant experience in my house, so that was a responsibility that terrified me. I would become a nun and thus live without that worry.

We had a small log cabin in our backyard for play. It was not used much, or maybe my sisters had grown tired of it. It became my sanctuary. I found myself fixing it up. Dreaming of a simple life. Making curtains and living with no wants or need of money for toys or candy. I did not even think of the fact that my dad was wealthy. Everyone I knew lived the same type of life. But in this small cabin I was not rich. I was simple, alone, and I learned the true meaning of peace. The reason they shook hands and said Peace be with you at church.

We had maids in my home. A live-in maid and a day maid. The live-in maids came from different countries throughout those years, so I had created my own language. I spoke Germanese. These maids cared for us as a mother might do. Bertha came in the day. She had been my grandfather’s housekeeper and had stories to share. I loved Bertha. She rode the bus all the way from the slums of DC. Sometimes her husband would pick her up, but my mom said he was an alcoholic. She said my godmother, my dad’s sister, was terrible because she was an alcoholic. My best friend was awful because her parents were divorced being that her father was an alcoholic. Sure enough, alcoholics were bad and should be shamed. Why did they not have a skull-and-cross bones on those bottles