Speaking Opposite

A/N: "This is my original art, don't steal."

    Isabelle watched as the hawk's looming shadow glazed over the desolate cement path. Trees with no leaves stood stagnant in the frost covered soil; Solid and unswaying as the grounded Rocky Mountains of Canada. Her white sneakers— grass stained and well worn— tapped a slow walk. She kept her head down and cold hands in the pockets of her orchard yellow sweater, hood up. No one ever walked this path, and she liked it better that way. Although, the hawk that always gave her company on her way home from Middle School never strayed its keen eye from her unhurried figure. 

"Maybe, if I were a mouse, you could swoop down and carry me away? People might be less inclined to talk to me if I simply disappeared one day." She said to herself in a half joking tone.

    A loud squeak erupted from the hunter's mouth and echoed across the flat, frost-nipped valley. Her shoes crunched a few weeds as she kept walking, somehow they had survived last night's freeze? The winter always stole away Earth's beauty, but it seemed that the most hated of plants had survived miraculously.

"I only wish I had perseverance as great as those ugly things." She scoffed as she gazed upon the shrivelled, green weeds. 

    The sky above seemed nonexistent, shrouded in a gloomy haze of thick fog. Not one bit of Autumn's golden and scarlet leaves shawn anymore. Every bit of beauty that had been alive suddenly decayed into dull browns, off whites and depressing greys. Isabelle's yellow sweater glowed gold upon all that was bleak and unimpressive.

"I stand out too much wearing this sweater. I wouldn't have even worn it if mom hadn't forced me out the door with a jacket. Ten degrees below is nothing compared to forty degrees below; I can manage just fine without it."

    When she arrived at her front door, she could smell the scent of garlic and spices from within that white house. She twisted the golden knob and entered. No one seemed to notice she had arrived home, no one ever greeted her anyhow so it wasn't peculiar in the slightest. Her damaged socks slid across the polished, wood floor and brought Isabelle to stand just a few steps away from her mother.

    She was a tall woman with red hair so bright it was obvious to anyone the colour was anything but natural, and she made an effort to only wear black clothing; "Can't complain about what stains you can't see," she always said. She always had a scowl printed across her thin lips, and her eyes drooped in a way she constantly appeared in deep distress. Despite these features, she somehow managed to sound young and excitable, the stark opposite of her physical appearance.

"If you want me to ask you how school went, don't bother. Your affliction makes talking to you worthless, you always say the opposite of what you mean."

    This sentence hurt Isabelle, no matter how many times her mother said it. Even though it was hurtful to hear, Isabelle couldn't disagree with the word "affliction." Ever since she was old enough to speak there was always this barrier in communication. It wasn't that she was bad at it, more so, no matter how hard she tried she always said the exact opposite of the words she was meaning to say. She could write her thoughts down on paper just fine, but the moment another's keen eye drifted over her writing the words would always change into a completely different sentence. Most, by her Middle School years, called it a curse. Due to this "affliction" she avoided all occasions where talking was a necessity.

"Why are you still here? We can't have a conversation, so why waste your time standing around doing nothing. Go put your clothes away, or whatever, you haven't cleaned your room in months." The tall woman ordered.

    This statement wasn't true in the slightest, Isabelle cleaned her room regularly, but her mother had her own affliction. She couldn't go one hour without wiping down the stair railings, cleaning the tables, or mopping the floors. She was, in all sense of the definition, a germaphobe. She carried around a tiny bottle of hand-sanitizer in her jean pocket, just in case she needed it, which was constantly. If one looked close enough, they could see the cracks in her dry hands— so dry one could almost hear the cells gasping for much needed water.