I Saw Her

Chapter 4

She was just a normal girl among the many who visited the park at first.

Since I sat on the benches everyday, I observed the masses of people who walked past me. Some were children who squealed at every flower that they haven't seen before, some pestered their parents about why the sky was blue. Some of them were old ladies who were in large groups, laughing so shrilly it made my ears hurt.

But they all had something in common. They walked past me, they moved on, they disappeared as fast as they had appeared both in my eyes as well as in my memory.

However, this girl stayed.

It started from the 20th of March. Every day, I would always see her sitting on the bench opposite me, sitting down unmovingly for hours and hours, completely absorbed in her pencil and paper. She was silent and to everyone else, she could have been part of the scenery.

But not to me.

Somehow, she bothered me. Was it how she had something she wanted to work for?

I started to observe her everyday. Without fail, she would come to the park at 10 in the morning, get out her pencil and paper, and start to draw. At 4 in the afternoon, she would pack up her things and leave.

She was short in stature, had long silky black hair. I couldn't see much of her other facial features though, since she was quite far away.

I found her slightly intriguing and amusing. I wasn't particularly interested in what she was doing, nor was I curious enough to talk to her.

This routine went on for about two weeks before it changed.

On the 4th of April, this time, she didn't sit on the bench opposite me, but sat on the same bench beside me. However, I wasn't really affected by it. Maybe she just needed a change of scenery.

I just continued observing the black and white world through my lifeless eyes.

"Aren't you bored, sitting here everyday doing nothing?" a feminine voice asked.

Startled, I turned towards the girl, but she was still head down, focused on her drawing of the scenery. Oh, so it was a drawing after all.

Thinking that it could have been just my mind playing tricks on me, I turned away and ignored it.

"Do you like this place?" the same voice asked again.

I again turned my head towards the girl, who this time, was smiling at me. She had chocolate brown eyes and a radiant smile.

"No... not really," I muttered in response to her question. Unaffected, she looked up at the sky and continued on, "Well I like this place very much. But things change. Happy things, sad things, even fun things, they all do. But can you still like this place?"

"No, if there isn't anything left for me, I wouldn't like this place," I blurted out without thinking.

"Then why not, find other new and happy things?" She said as she smiled towards me.

I wasn't expecting it. What she said was so honest and truthful, so full of emotion that it caught me off guard. It had so much feeling and happiness put into it that it made my black and white world shatter.

I suddenly saw everything in full colour.