In England, first they lived in a place called Richmond.
Khine Khine could remember nothing of that place except that the house was big and tall, with a rectangular lawn at the back, in which a red peony, with its heavy head drooping down, bloomed one day.
Khine Khine thought she had never seen anythmg so dark red, the petals were curved inwards and shiny. She turned her head upside down to try to see the center of the flower, if it had yellow stamens, but saw only tight petals, like a red cabbage.
She wanted to cut the flower and put it indoors in a silver jug with a big looped handle.
Glarnis never let Khine Khine do anything that she wanted, but that day she said, "Yes, you may go cut the peony, if you want." She pronounced it pyo ni, which to Khine Khine in the little home Burmese that she knew, sounded like "red maiden."
She ran excitedly into the house to get her mother's pointed scissors, and ran back down the steps to get the peony, but on the way down she stumbled and poked her chest with the point of the scissors, so that was her first scar.
Copyright KMKaung
1-5-2016
