Part VII Out Into the Wilderness

Part VII

Before we let the Little Girl grow up and meet Prince Charming and live happily ever after, we are going to go back in time. Back in time to when the Witch discovered Lucy was receiving visits from an admirer. Do you know the story of Rapunzel? The selfish witch refuses to share Rapunzel, she cuts off her hair and casts her out into the desert where she has to live in great grief and misery. Lucy's mother refused to share her with a man. She cut off Lucy's hair and threw her out into the wilderness. 

Then the witch laid in wait for the young man to appear and tried to seduce him with her witchly wiles. She put on her best disguise and flattered the young man who fell for her charms. 

All the while the young man had been visiting Lucy, whenever they heard the witch approaching he had hidden in the closet. When the witch caught them together, the young man came out of the closet and much to the chagrin* of the witch, he discovered that he was gay. So she cast him out into the wilderness too. It is unlikely that we will see much of this young man as he took drugs to make life in the wilderness more fun and he died.

So poor Lucy was left to take care of herself all alone on the streets. She begged for her food, men enjoyed her company at meals and sometimes Lucy exchanged food for a bed for the night. It was more comfortable than sleeping on the cobble stones. Lucy always kept her kind heart, feeling compassion for the slaggy, drug addicted prostitutes who slumped in doorways in the early hours of dawn. Lucy often stayed up all night, dancing her way through the darkness. Everyone was enchanted by her. But all the dancing and not sleeping took its toll on her health and Lucy felt the need to escape this life of bright lights and corruption.

But she had no money; she had spent all her money on clothes she had worn into rags and shiny things to make herself feel better. What could she do? She came up with a plan: she knew of a place where they had been kind to her when her mother had first cast her out, but it was a long way-away, in a town called Melbourne. So she danced and sang to the music of a beautiful busker she met called Donny. All afternoon they danced and sang but the little money that passers-by threw them was not nearly enough for the train fare to Melbourne. They sat at the train station wondering what to do.

Then a miracle happened. A man came up to them and said, “I have a ticket, it will take you anywhere in the state that you want to go. It expires tomorrow and I no longer have need of it, but you look like you probably do.”

“Please!” exclaimed Lucy.

So the man even went to the booking office and booked a seat for her on the train to Melbourne, the ticket would take her to the border.

The cat train Lucy caught to get to Melbourne

When the train arrived and Lucy got on, she waved farewell to Donny in the hope that one day they would meet again. But he was her soul mate and had appeared for only the time when she desperately needed him. (Somewhere I think I may still have a letter he wrote to her, perhaps more about that later.)

Lucy’s ticket was first class. She enjoyed sitting in the lounge car and she changed the name on her ticket from Mr to Mrs Parnell. The other passengers gave her strange looks. “What could this girl all dressed in rags be doing sitting in this fine carriage,” they seemed to say. But Lucy just smiled graciously at them and they let her be.

She was ravenously hungry and stole someone’s sandwiches, and lied to them afterwards. It was a necessity and she owned up to it in the end so I think God will forgive her.

When night time fell, Lucy found her way to an empty carriage, she closed the door and lay down to sleep. She slept all the way over the border and arrived in Melbourne town.

Wow what a stir was created when she arrived! She walked straight into a protest march of BLF men. She had changed her clothes and was dressed like her idol Madonna. They were so struck by her appearance that they couldn't take their eyes off her and the flood of men parted like Moses and the red sea.

She found the young man who used to hide in the closet, but now that he was out, he didn't want her, but he took her to the place where she knew they would be kind to her and left her there to recover. It took time, but by changing her clothes and listening to music her health gradually improved. A kind lady gave her beautiful clothes to wear, a long silver ball gown, and seductive green dress and a black top not unlike gossamer* wings.

The hospital was burnt up

But a terrible thing happened. One of the patients, who wasn't very well, got it into his head to set fire to the place. Fortunately it was a weekend and most of the patients had gone home. But Lucy was there. She ran to tell the nurse who tried fruitlessly to extinguish the blaze but it had caught on the curtains and the place went up in smoke. Lucy bashed frantically on all the doors to make sure everybody was out and then stood by helplessly as she watched her beautiful clothes burn to a cinder.

So much for the rose garden from which she had cut flowers, the roses survived but they had to move to an old ward. It was homely and comfortable, but not as elegant as the brand new one that had been renovated and then destroyed.

The rose garden was lost

Lucy's new cottage

Lucy still  made pots of tea to welcome the staff when they arrived in the morning. She had special friends here who had suffered a great deal. One boy had been run over and all his bones wired back together, another named Angelo, had been possessed by demons and was recovering after his exorcism. They went on outings together to Melbourne Zoo and had picnics in the 100 acre grounds of the Royal Park. Lucy as yet did not know of the existence of the evil picnic rug so their luncheons were happy affairs.

Come Christmas time it was decided that it would be best if all the patients should go home. But where was Lucy to go? She had no home. Was it possible that they would send her back into the arms of the evil witch and her father?

Stay tuned for part VIII

*1. Chagrin: annoyance at having failed or been humiliated

     synonyms: annoyance, irritation, vexation, exasperation, 

                displeasure, crossness, anger, rage, fury, wrath

*2. Gossamer fabric: very light, sheer, gauze-like fabric