This Is What The Rest Of Your Life Will Taste Like

40” x 60” Watercolor on paper
2014

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At the age of four Esther, the little girl my same age, whom lived with her parents and thirteen siblings across the street in Moorpark, irrevocably informed my short life. We played innocently piecing small shiny stones from broken plates together but one day Esther grew weary of the stones and told me that the devil would come to take me away. I was confident in my reply to her that I would simply stand next to my mother for protection from evil. Esther shook her head solemnly and said that the devil would crack the earth around my mother and me so that I would fall in! I could not speak upon hearing this devastating statement and envisioning my fall into the fathomless crevice. I lay down on the grass unable to get up so overcome was I with the revelation that my mother could not protect me! My mother stood at the screen door and saw me laying on the grass in a daze. She said, "Get up, Danelle, get up from the grass." But I could not move. How could I knowing that this is what the rest of my life would taste like?