Mirror Ball

By M.A. Adams

There cannot be very high expectations for someone’s life when their initiation into this earthly plane finds that little soul ceremoniously abandoned straight after birth in the middle of nowhere. But, on reflection, if a human being is to survive such a calamitous beginning, then surely the only way is up for then on. And so begins the tale of little Mirrabella who travels from a seemingly hopeless and lonely launching pad to the momentous epiphany that occurs in her life, years later, that unravels in this amazing story of a little, orphaned minion from nowhere that makes a wondrous discovery that just could hold the potential, within its workings, to transform lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: M.A. Adams
• Release date: Jan 18, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311876768

M.A. Adams

M.A. Adams A newly-published author exploring the mysterious world of what remains undiscovered within us.

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MIRROR BALL

by M.A. Adams.

Copyright 2014 M.A. Adams.

Smashwords Edition.

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Lost and found.

I was christened Mirrabella by the nuns at the orphanage and while the name suited me well enough I would often reflect on my life and wonder if the name Middle would have been a more appropriate one for me. The rather inauspicious beginning of my journey began in the middle of June, the 15th was the official date written on my birth certificate, around the middle of the 20th century, in the year 1950. My poverty stricken mother delivered me into this world in the middle of a field situated near the the middle of the official border that separated the countries of Peru, Bolivia and Brazil. The authorities deduced that I was born around midday because I was discovered not long after the blessed event by a passing farmer who was in the middle of undertaking his daily chores.

Fortunately, for me, the farmer noticed my little squirming body on the middle of an old blanket as he approached me on his old trusty tractor. And that was my first strike of good fortune because he rescued me from certain death as I lay helpless to the stark reality of a truly inhospitable environment that surrounded me. He jumped off his old war horse, after stopping it’s motor suddenly, and raced over towards tiny, abandoned Mirrabella who was obviously, at that stage, nameless. My birth mother had disappeared into the wilderness somewhere and the old Farmer promptly scooped me up, wrapping me tightly in the tatty blanket, and placed me gently on the passenger seat of his dilapidated tractor. He then made his way back to his homestead where he was confident that his wife would be much better equipped to deal with calamities such as this.

Thinking back now, as I write this account, it does seem quite extraordinary that I even lived to tell my story. But obviously I was meant to be here, for rather unknown reasons that usually escape my rational thought processes most of the time when I reflect on those humble beginnings. And so begins my journey when I was successfully rescued from the middle of nowhere over there somewhere and transported to the middle of somewhere else much closer to where I am now.

Omaha, Nebraska.

The next stop for me was Omaha, Nebraska where my adoptive parents lived at the time. If you look on the map you can see that Omaha, Nebraska is situated pretty well in the middle of the United States of America. My parents, Johnny and Betty Marconi, were anxiously anticipating my arrival when I eventually made it into their small suburban home and because they were unable to have any babies of their own they set out to far-away Brazil, to the ramshackle orphanage that was my temporary home, and claimed me as their own a few months after I was rather dramatically left to die in that field in the middle of nowhere.

I can’t honestly say if being transported from the wilds of the remote Brazilian countryside to the rather desolate confines of the American prairie was a step forwards or backwards, in terms of acclimatizing to civilization, but that was the path I travelled and for better, or worse, the city of Omaha, Nebraska would become my home for quite a few years until the next set of life-changing events took place at the Marconi house on 63rd Avenue.

Johnny Marconi, my father, was an intellectual giant who ended up living in the backwater environment of Omaha, Nebraska that, in the 1950’s at least, was beset with a rather fervent religious and moral righteousness which seemed at odds with his liberal and rather unorthodox outlook on life. Only some God and the unknown (to me) historical escapades of Johnny’s ancestors could adequately explain to anyone how the hell my father ended up residing in such a wasteland during his formative years.

To be perfectly truthful, I never totally came to grips with the entire story myself, despite many opportunities to do so, but it is probably safe to assume that the war had a lot to do with the eventual outcome of Johnny’s geographical destination, and the chaos that ensued for many unfortunate souls either before, during or after the Second World War that had such a devastating impact on their homelands in Europe somewhere.

Regardless of how exactly their inspired decision-making processes transpired back then, the reality in 1950 was that my father, Johnny Marconi, was delivered to a particular landscape where he was forced to live like a fish out of water in many respects. He would often say, during his ranting, that I was privy to hearing whether I wanted to or not throughout our tiny home, that he may as well have lived on planet Mars. Maybe that is where Dad really would have preferred to live, in hindsight, because he was often looking up at the sky, pondering all sorts of elusive philosophies and far-fetched ideas on our porch in the evenings after dinner.

Dad worked somewhere in the town and left early each weekday morning and returned to our humble abode during the late afternoon. He always came home smelling quite disgusting and showered, without fail, on his arrival before partaking of the evening meal. I’m pretty sure, through my expert powers of deduction, that Johnny Marconi filled his days at the local abattoir across the other side of the river. That was the routine he followed each weekday, without fail, but come the evenings and the weekends; Dad could always be found in his tiny study, with his head in a multitude of books that covered a vast array of subjects and topics.

He worked hard, studied diligently and played amorously with his wife, Betty, when his time wasn’t occupied with either of the two aforementioned obligations. Indeed, my parents always appeared to be doing it, rather noisily and unpredictably, whenever the mood took them, which seemed to be quite a lot, even by my earliest reckoning. Johnny adored his wife and she reciprocated by making him extremely happy in every way. The fact that my parents could not have babies, naturally, wasn’t through a lack of sexual activity and it was quite strange to consider how people like my mother and father , who copulated so incessantly, weren’t able to conceive a child of their own.

One can never really understand how these misadventures happen to people but there it was. Two seemingly able-bodied people, together for years, having unprotected sexual relations and nothing happens. It must have been God’s will, or judgement, or punishment, or some family inheritance or curse. Don’t worry; I think I heard all the explanations over the years when people would discuss my adoption and my parent’s problem that brought me into their lives.

My mother, Betty, was a complete dynamo, in many respects, and perfectly matched my father’s brilliant mind to an absolute T. Her real name was Elspeth Margarita Florentine, or something near to that. At least that is what she used to tell me and anybody else who enquired about her life story. She was intelligent, sexy, provocative, and passionate and, at that point at least, seemed determined to make something of her life. Johnny and Betty were childhood sweethearts and had become lovers at quite a young age. Then the war intervened and the direction of their future lives would end up bearing little resemblance to anything that their ancestors had known or experienced.

I could tell you many things about my mother but one detail that escapes my memory is her exact age. Whether she wasn’t accurately aware of it, or simply that she didn’t want to share that type of classified information with anyone, I don’t know for certain, but she would always declare that the details in her passport were a fabrication and based on false documentation manufactured to ensure their escape from their war-torn homeland. My father worked outside the home earning the money needed to keep us sheltered and fed, and my mother, true to her generation, remained in the home and tendered her little family.

Omaha, Nebraska was about as far away as my parents could have possibly been from living their lifestyle of choice and it seemed, to my observations at least as I grew up, that they didn’t appear to interact with their adopted city, or any of its inhabitants, with any degree of conviction or regularity. Their daily circumstances were rudimentary and, perhaps to outsiders, rather austere, but they had a plan and they both committed themselves to it with great determination. And for that, I can be thankful, because little Mirrabella Marconi, living in the middle of nowhere probably wouldn’t be writing this now if Johnny and Betty hadn’t resolved to get away from Omaha one day in the future.

Early years.

What can I say about those early years living in Omaha, Nebraska that would be truthful and accurate? Probably not an awful lot because the reality is that those earliest years are not available in my memory recall, so if I wanted to write about that time it would need to be a second-hand account from somebody else’s recollection and that is never a good idea, in my humble opinion. Have you ever noticed how other people remember situations and events differently to you? When you hear their version of a particular story, or a certain time in your own life, that you were present for yourself, you can end up feeling rather incredulous with their recollection of what they