Little Girl

Okay, I’ll admit it, I took one look at this week’s photo on Elephant Words and thought “cannibals.” I know, I know, I should have looked at it and been inspired to write a story about good, hardy people forging a new life for themselves in a new world, with nothing but their wits and some plain old fashioned gumption to help them. But, instead, I just thought, “Oh my god, they’re going to eat that child!”

So, my story this week, Little Girl, is about a man who leaves Liverpool with his family to start a new life on America’s new frontier. However, he’s ill prepared, the family end up near starving to death, their initial hope for a new start turns to despair and they’re forced to eat the child to survive.

Tragic.

Of course…in my head it went a little differently… In my head, they came from Liverpool and were scousers… For the Americans reading this, a scouser is like a red neck, only with a more annoying accent. I’m sure Liverpool has given the world many great things, like The Beatles…and…um…yeah…there was…no, that was rubbish…and so was Bread, The Liver Birds, Brookside, both Liverpool and Everton FC…and…well…everything else ever to come out of Liverpool. I know, I’m being grossly unfair…but I ended up stuck at University with a scouser who thought I was “brilliant” and insisted on talking to me at length about…something….every time I saw him (who knows what he was actually saying with that accent…probably something about nicking the wheels off a car…).

I can so never go to Liverpool after writing that…

So, originally, “Little Girl” was going to be called “They Do Do That Down There Though Don’t They” and was going to read something like this.

“’Ere, Ken, we ain’t got no food, like!”

“Calm down, ma, calm down, we can always nick us some of dat dere food like.”

“Nick some? From where? Dere ain’t no shops or nothin’ like, where yous gonna nick some food from, like?”

“Well, like, I know, we could always, like, eat the baybi.”

“Eat the baybi? Eat the baybi?!”

“Calm, down, calm down, it’s what dey do down in dat dere London, like.”

“Dey do do dat down dere dough, don’t dey?”

“Dey do do dat down dere. Now drink yer milk.”

“Milk? Yuck.”

“It’s what Ian Rush drinks…”

I really wish it was yesterday and I could just claim this post was an April Fools Day prank…