Atria (Chapter 5)

Chapter 51


Over the next few days, Ashley started to adjust to her new body, as you can imagine, it is a weird experience for any spirit, to have spent time in a sixteen year old body only to be thrown into orbit and become a baby all over again. Ashley realized that she had difficulty understanding the people around her and that her thought patterns were more limited now then they were before. She put this down to her brain being half the size it was when she left earth the last time. When Ashley listened carefully, she could make sense of a few of the words that her parents were saying, but not much else. Ashley spent a lot of her time just studying her mothers face; it wasn’t like she had a heap of other things to be going on with. Her mother was a pretty lady, with vivid red curly hair and deep blue/green eyes. She looked about 23 years old, she had pale skin and rosy pink cheeks, and she was always smiling. She had the most beautiful smile; with perfect pearly white teeth and breath that always seemed to smell like toothpaste. These may seem like weird observations, but Ashley noticed every one of them, just lying there in her mother’s arms, day after day. Ashley knew the scent of her mothers perfume by heart; the same went for her father’s aftershave. Her father was a handsome man, his hair was as black as coal and always shiny and styled, he had dark brown eyes, which Ashley regularly found herself staring into, thanking Atrius for blessing her with such lovely parents.2

As Ashley became more in tune to her parents voices, she started recognizing more words, then the fateful day came when Ashley was nursing from her mother, and she heard her say… “I love you Olivia” Ashley’s heart jumped for joy, so her name was Olivia, what a beautiful name! She wondered about her parent’s names. Maybe she was named after them, or maybe her grandmother or her auntie or… Olivia lay there smiling, She had so much ahead of her and a whole life to live. She couldn’t wait.3

Over the next few years, Olivia grew, and as she grew, she started remembering less and less about Atria, though she knew in her heart that she still had the knowledge of the place where she was from. “The crossing over” as they call it in Atria, came for Olivia on the day of her second birthday. She turned to her mother as she cut up the birthday cake and said proudly, “I love you mummy!”
Isn’t it amazing, how one sentence can change everything, how that one sentence made her mother break down crying and all of Olivia’s memories of Atria vanish simultaneously. 4

Olivia grew into a healthy four year old and was the spitting image of her father; she had the same raven black silky hair, though it was curly like her mothers, and deep brown eyes. She loved sports and played on the under fives soccer team at their local club, and ended up leading them to victory in the grand finals. She lived in her soccer clothes and hated dresses; she hadn’t worn one since the day she learnt to dress herself. She went to “Fresh fields preschool and kindergarten” and was the brightest in her class. She learnt to read at three and a half years old and took much joy in reading picture books to the rest of her class. Olivia was also an artist, She was the first child in her class who learnt to colour within the lines and was awarded a chocolate bar for her good work. In preschool, Olivia learnt, much to her amazement, that she lived in Melbourne, Australia. For a second, she thought she remembered somebody saying something about a dog, in suburban Australia, a long time ago, but she dismissed it as a weird dream.
Five years after Olivia was born, she was blessed with a beautiful little sister who her parents named Amiel, Amiel looked more like her mother then anything else. She inherited the vivid red hair and beautiful blue eyes. Unlike Olivia, Amiel loved to spend her time wearing pretty dresses and playing with her dolls rather than kicking a ball, but Olivia didn’t mind, Natasha lived only a couple of streets away from her and they would play all the time.
When Olivia started primary school she made friends easily. Her best friend though, was Natasha. Natasha was the pudgy kid that everyone ignored. She had glasses, and freckles and she always had her shirt tucked in. The other kids always used to tease her until Olivia stepped in, “If you pick on tasha one more time, I’ll kick you in the bum bum!” she told them angrily, and not one of them dared answer back. What Olivia didn’t realize it that this one act of kindness formed a bond that could never be broken. Olivia and Natasha stayed friends the whole way through primary school. In year seven, Natasha got contact lenses and started to lose some weight, and by year eight, she was actually quite pretty. Olivia on the other hand had grown more beautiful as the days had passed and was the girl that all the boys stared at. Olivia had a great relationship with her parents, her mum, Julie, loved Olivia with all of her heart, and her dad, Jason, despite his regular business trips to Sydney and Brisbane, always had time to kick the soccer ball around the back yard with his daughter. 5

Olivia hit year nine and her life began to take shape. She started to notice boys and her soccer skills were becoming more refined. She walked up to Natasha.
“Hey Tash, have you noticed Corey staring at me?” she asked quietly
“Livvy, all the guys stare at you, incase you didn’t notice, you are HOT!
“very funny” Olivia replied “But how about this, I think I like Corey”
“You’re kidding!” Natasha shouted “you actually like…” Olivia shoved her hand over Natasha’s mouth to stop her yelling.
“Keep your voice down!” she hissed “so what am I going to do?”
“Maybe you should ask him out” Replied Natasha
“Fine, maybe I will!”
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