O Caledonia

by Elspeth Barker

Janet’s struggle is universally that of the individual against the forces of authority: it is the fight to maintain one’s identity against powerful odds. It is the conundrum of how to become the person you need to be while all those around you desire you to be someone else.

When she was older she intended to be a princess. Almost as much as its image she loved the

word, with its tight beginning and its rustling, cascading end, like the gown a princess would wear, with a tiny waist and ruffles and trains of swirling silken skirts. Purple, of course. On such thoughts she slept.

She had rid her life of one haunting fear. And she had known the toxic joy of power.

“Do as you would be done by” went the credo, and it meant “Ask for nothing and you will be given nothing and no one will ask you for anything either.”