A crumb, brushed off from a man's lap. One of those men in suits, one of those men who iron their shirt twice, just to make sure every crease has gone. Who only eats tofu and organic food and goes to the gym when he says he does. A man who has a girlfriend he plays tennis with and invites friends onto his easily-manageable patio for little barbeques. A man striving to be nothing but immaculate. And, yet, his life was not immaculate-how can you thrive on life if you have drawn everything you want from it? Money, a good job, a girlfriend, a house. How can one be content with everything being perfect? He decided to eat somewhere different today. Somewhere where food is just given and no customer service is offered. A place where tofu is barely heard of and tips are considered charity and if you cared to stay and perch on a little wonky stool with the rest of the discontented people, you could marvel at the brown grot on the corner of the steamed windows. He went to this grotty little diner to get away from perfection, and he had certainly done just that. He tried to duck out of recognition, into this grand little park with a wishing well and a stagnant pond and trickling river. The restaurant nor the park itself was not perfection in the sense of order; which, of course in his eyes, was perfect. He sat on the bench and ate the sandwich and it saw this was good, before the full-fat mayonnaise curdled in his stomach and the stodgy bread caked his airways. He choked a little, before he eventually worked the gloopy remains down his throat. It was too late for him; he had chosen his path. He immediately felt ashamed and embarrassed that he decided to even begin to question what he had worked so hard for. He brushed the remains of his mistake on the ground of that park, and strode away.
And there was the little tiny crumb. Just sat, in front of that worn, cast-iron leg of the bench; the once turquoise paint invaded with little yellow specks. There it existed, balanced between two little spots of gravel that topped the path that precariously dodged the splayed, knarled roots of the crooked trees. Sometimes, the crumb was cast into shade when these trees swayed their outstretched branches with veined, breeze-burned leaves. And there it stayed.
But, of course, nothing stays forever. A dog paused, sniffing it's black and slightly pink nose towards the seat. It's target set, it wrenched itself over to the crumb, before thrusting it's horrible little face towards the remains of a mistake. It was little and scrawny; clearly the runt of the litter, it's disgusting little beard and whiskers covered in poorly-eaten food and debris found on various trips such as this. It always wanted that little bit more space than what the leash gave him, which was held by a visibly tired and worn-down lady. Possibly in her 30s, but she was one of those people you could never truly tell. All those little times she had grimaced and grinned had eroded into her skin; caused, perhaps, by all the choices she chose wrong, convinced that it was her poor luck. The wrong man, the wrong job, the wrong paint for her new living room, the wrong friends who helped her through the divorce but never showed any true depth, and now the wrong damned dog. Her arm had been silently screaming to be free of this creature's tugging for a while now, but the dog suddenly careering off to sniff a crumb was the breaking point; her feet ruined too by being squeezed into shoes that neither fitted nor suited her, and being forced to get up and stand around to make coffee and walk to get to the job she hated, so that she could stand and print out files for people she didn't care about, before being pressed on the car pedals that her husband once used so that she could return home to step into the living room, the throw pillows having been chewed up by the dog that were once made for when she had a family. 'It must be a sign,' she announced to her friends, 'It wasn't meant to be'. How funny that she had read the sign that her dog chewed up her pillows over reading the sign she showed in her face and her heart and her lungs. She was too busy being empty. So much so, in fact, that she had dropped her mints whilst resisting her dog's protests of being noosed. The beast finally subsided, in which they finally stooped off together to return home to their half-painted living room what was littered with packets and self-help books that never worked; a tiny bungalow that she had so many ideas for, ideas of a sofa that matched the material of the curtains and a fireplace that warmed the cold nights alone. And the mints lay there, wrapped in that terrible shade of green you only otherwise see on the likes of toads and dustbin vans. It teetered a little, considering whether to roll into the dip of the embankment or rest in the little nook of the path. It had chosen the gravel, nesting in a crack left by feet after feet after feet. And there it stayed.
But, of course, it is inevitable that the mints would not stay there forever. They would have gotten picked up by a man doing community service strapped with a black sack and a rubbish-grabber, or by one of those people that feel it it is their personal duty to clean the environment around them, whether it be of conscience or of good will. But it was not picked up by either of these people. It was picked up by a little girl, who was definitely young but looked older in thoughts, with one of those faces that you could look at forever but never truly picture her face completely in your head. One of those round faces that you needed to look at, just really look at, because it was one of those moments that you cannot just let pass by and not truly take in. The sort of girl that gave you real hope for the future. She had a face almost as bright as her brain, and as she walked along you could see the connections being made in her head as she absorbed every single detail she could squeeze in. She was dressed in clothes that were not hers, but clothes of a neighbour that no longer wanted them. A baggy, sickly pink shirt that said 'I love paris!' and a sequinned skirt that reached way past her knees. Her hair was roughly shawn by a carer that used kitchen utensils. Up close, you could notice how tendrils of her hair were still damp from washing, and pin-pricks from where she had been treated for something or other. Her face that emerged out of her dull surroundings made everything else seem irrelevant. She looked over at the dull cylindrical packet and plucked it from the dust. She played with it, ripping little pieces and making shapes out of them. She inhaled the scent of the fresh, sweet circles as if it would be her last. She had no real money for things such as these, so perhaps maybe it would be. She just loved to make things look beautiful.She loved it ever since her aunt took her to a free gallery that had various works of paintings and sculptures; how the hustle and bustle of the people was not as it was outside, how the people talked to her and made her feel at home; how some of the paintings were so fresh on the wall that she could smell the top coat from where she was standing, and how she knew that she would try whatever she could to have her makings on one of those pure, white-washed walls.
She carefully slid all the little shapes of the packet into her shoes, still tightly grasping the mints. This was a girl who did not leave anything behind. She took off after her carer, taking care to not trip on loose stones and various obstacles. She was not past questioning things; quite the opposite. She was fresh, and she was young and she was a force to be reckoned with. A mistake had been made, a crumb had been dropped, a dog had taken the crumb with the lady dropped her mints in return. These were no conscious actions of fate, purposefully laid out for her. How lucky. How impossibly wonderful fate is.
