I had to distract myself. I started preparing dinner. I made us something light, the perfect storm food; grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. Next to me, Sonja was looking out the window with a somber expression.
“I’m tired of being inside. I want to go out and play, but it’s too dark and stormy out.”
“I know, honey, I’m sorry. But there are plenty of games we can play inside. Hopefully, tomorrow or sometime soon, we’ll get a reprieve.”
Likewise, Chloe and even Momo were restless and didn’t want to sleep anymore. On and off, we had all slept for twenty hours, so our circadian rhythms were a bit screwy. Rather than putting their food in their bowls, I poured their tomato soup into coffee mugs and let them join me on the couch with their sandwiches. I turned on my laptop and started a movie. Normally, the girls didn’t pay attention to the TV, but I had downloaded the “planet earth” series, which would probably keep them glued to the screen.
“What are we watching?” Sonja asked.
“Is it porn?” Momo chirped.
“No, it’s not porn. It’s called a documentary. It will show you the world and the animals in it.”
It was the first episode, “Pole to Pole”, and the intro alone left the girls shocked and in awe. They had no idea that the world had so much stuff in it. It started with penguins in Antarctica, the girls laughing at the waddling birds.
“Are there penguins near us?” Chloe asked.
Considering how little she knew of the world, her question didn’t surprise me. Until now, her world consisted only of the woods around our house.
I patted her head. “No, sweetie, they are far away.”
It then showed a polar bear with her cubs in the Arctic, causing Sonja to begin wiggling in excitement.
“They look just like me!”
“Yeah, back when you were fluffier. You did kind of look like a polar bear.”
“Momo wants a cub.”
I turned to her, shocked by her declaration. Was she feeling maternal? If I told her she was sterile, how would she react?
“You mean you want to have a child of your own?”
“No, Momo wants a bear cub. They are small of furry. Momo wants to play with one and take a nap with it.”
Ah, of course.
From there, the girls’ reactions depended on whatever animal they were looking at. When Sonja saw wolves or foxes, she would growl. Every time Momo saw big cats or strange birds, she would purr. Chloe would squeal and cover her eyes every time something was eaten, even insects. Scenes of great white sharks left them all terrified, and I even heard some tearful sniffles when a young elephant got separated from its herd. It finished again with the penguins, showing the hatching chicks, which made them all cheer.
“How was that, girls?”
“Can we watch another?” Momo asked.
Sonja got off the couch and started jumping up and down. “Yeah, can we? Can we? Can we?”
“Sure, girls, one more.”
I started the next episode, the mountains episode. Immediately, the girls were left awestruck, unable to believe that anything could be so big. None of them had ever seen a mountain before, so these huge rock behemoths might as well have been other planets. A shot of a churning volcano broke that awe and left them cowering, as if they expected molten rock to come pouring out of the screen. They settled back down when the scene shifted to a green mountain range in Ethiopia, soothed by the beauty and size. The sight of baboons left them puzzled, seeing the creatures climbing with fingers like their own. Sonja’s tail was wagging, the baboons reminding her of squirrels.
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