#95 Elsie

by Julie Lye

As she sat rocking back and forth amongst the coloured shards, she remembered her Grandfather. He’s built this room especially for her.

A triangular shaped room with moveable walls made of double layered glass. In between the glass were intricate patterns of coloured plastic mosaic pieces.

In the centre of the room was a huge comfy chair perched upon a “Lazy Susan”. Instead of a foot rest the chair had two pedals and looked really bizarre.

Elsie had been a frail and sickly child and no matter how hard her parents tried she’d never spoken or even smiled.

The Doctors and Specialists gave it some strange sounding name and concluded that she may or may not “grow out of it”; they didn’t know enough about this condition.

Elsie’s Grandfather was a builder by trade and a keen amateur inventor. He had read all the paraphernalia about the disorder Elsie was apparently afflicted with and set to making her a room where she could “Feel Alive”.

It turned out to be a giant Kaleidoscope which you sat inside of and operated by the pedals on the chair. The glass walls would turn as you pedalled and the light from above would cascade across the coloured mosaics leaving you feeling as if you were sitting inside a rainbow of pure happiness.

In this room Elsie could smile and slowly her health began to improve and eventually she had spoken.

That was twenty-five years ago, before the tornados.