I wrote this very short memoir/essay as an exercise at my writing group’s meeting yesterday. Because I haven’t posted in over a week, I decided to share it today.
The Truth About Statues
When I was very young, I thought that statues were actually dead people encased in concrete. It made sense, as every statue I’d ever seen appeared to be a well-known dead person. But one statue greatly troubled me. It was a child with wings, an angel gazing down into a dark pool of water.
“Mommy,” I asked once. “Was that a real little boy they made that statue from?”
“Probably,” she said.
“Did his parents want him to be a statue?” I persisted.
“Probably so.”
The thought appalled me. “Would you ever let me be a statue?”
“I suppose,” my mother replied. She was busy ironing and watching her soap opera on television. “Would you like to be a statue?”
Katherine Wikoff 
I was always fascinated with statues! I thought they came to life when you weren’t looking!
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So good knowing I wasn’t the only one to view statues with some suspicion 🙂
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Here’s an interesting link re: fascination with statues and inanimate objects on wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agalmatophilia (in case you’re interested!)
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Oh my, who knew? Very interesting, and something I’d never heard of before. Thanks for the link!
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This got me thinking…if I was a statue, what kind of pose would I be? I mean it ends up being sort of a statement…so what would make the strongest statement? Thanks for the post!
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You’re right. I hadn’t thought of that. It ends up being a statement, so you’d want to choose something attractive but also uniquely “you.” Now I’m wondering why the standard statue of my childhood seemed to be a man in a suit standing with one foot forward and one hand tucked into the front of his shirt. Checking for a heartbeat maybe? Thanks for your insight!
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I just love that story!
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Thank you, Karen!
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Oh my! That’s hilarious. I wonder how many disturbing things I’ve unwittingly told my daughters because I was distracted!
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Ha! Exactly 🙂
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Wow! That’s great. It also reminds me of the Weeping Angels episodes in Dr. Who, so creepy!
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I must confess I’ve never seen “Dr. Who.” Watching it is on my list of things to do someday when I have more time. (It’s a fun list, meant to counteract empty nest issues when that unhappy time arrives in the
thankfully
somewhat distant future. Maybe I can use my “fun things to do someday” list as a blog post sometime 🙂 )
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I hadn’t ever seen it either, until a couple years ago, despite the fact that some of my friends have always been obsessive fans. I have only watched the first few of the new series’ seasons. They are great! And I predict based on this poem that you will especially love the episode Blink. 🙂
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Oops, I should have said, poetic memoir/essay!
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Ha! It sort of reads like a little prose poem, though. Don’t you think? Very self-contained, with the “totality of effect” that Poe talks about in “The Poetic Principle” 🙂
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Yes–I honestly thought it was until I reread your intro
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Wow that was such a good read–thanks, Katie! I hadn’t read that essay before.
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Me, neither. But I knew it was Poe who had talked about the idea of stories being brief and having a dominant impression. I couldn’t remember the quote/term exactly so went looking for it . . . and found the essay.
I agree; it’s a really good read! I can’t believe it never came up in a lit class for me. You learn something new every day, I guess, and Poe’s essay is what I learned today 🙂
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And lucky for me that you did!
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