Silent Girl, Loud World

Prologue

A/N: As with my other story, I will add more chapters, and longer chapters, when I see any interest in the story, so if you like it please please please say so :)) Also, I changed this to being the prologue cause in all honesty it would be a pretty crappy first chapter.

Today in the café with the white tables and the black cups, the little café near the pond with the white birds that are swans, I saw honesty. I saw it as though it were a metro sign in Paris. It demanded to be seen, it wasn’t silent like me. It screamed to the heavens and demanded a price for the beauty it showed. It was a moment like all others, a moment in a day where I sat in the white chairs and read a new book and glanced up to mark the world as it was just then.

It was just another day where I woke up and got the train to wherever I am and walked past the old man with the frayed green coat that played his tuneless song, like every Thursday when I didn’t have to work. And then at 11:56 am a little boy walked up to a man, a tall man with piercings and a frightening face. And the little boy said “Please sir, tell me, where does the hope go when it dies?” And this little boy seemed world weary in his young skin, so tired of sadness in his happy smile, that the tall man with the piercings leaned down and whispered “Hope doesn’t die”. And the little boy with the sad happy smile and the world weary skin smiled a little brighter and laughed a little louder and seemed a little less weary and I looked at this man and I knew that he knew that hope does die but in that moment of deception lay a note of pure honesty, the honesty of people and their actions when little boys ask big questions at 11:56 on autumn Thursdays just like every other Thursday. And I looked at my book and I sighed and I closed the story because for once the story in front of me was prettier than the one I was reading.

So I got up and I walked outside to the sun that shines and down the silent road past the ugly buildings to the pond with the white birds that are swans and I wondered like I wonder every day whether anyone would notice if I just flew off with them and never returned. But on that day with honesty and little boys and hope that doesn’t die I merely laughed at the sadness of the world and hurried to the train. And I knew tomorrow I would hurt again, when the hope had gone and the little boy had grown as big as his questions, and I would not laugh tomorrow but for today, for today that hope was enough. For today I laughed. For today the boy is little and the hope is alive and the man with piercings is honest. So today we live and tomorrow we see.

I was right about tomorrow. It did hurt. That black cat that always used to sleep on my blue and green quilt, the cat that I didn’t own but loved all the same, that cat died this morning. I had gone down the metal stairs past the broken mirror and around the dying plant when I found the poor dear all curled up and nothing to love and it didn’t breathe and it didn’t move and I didn’t cry because it wasn’t my cat.

And then the coffee turned stale and the shower ran cold and the light blew out. And I remembered. I remembered when he was still alive and in love and would fix the light as soon as it broke because he knew how I hated dark. I remembered his smile at my fascination with cats and my complete denial thereof. And I showered in the cold shower and remembered all the good things that I had and it made me happy. Until I remembered watching his smile die and learning to love the dark because there were no longer lights and mornings when he wasn’t there and nights where he was and I still am not sure which was worse.

I remember myself as I was before him and I wonder, like every other day, I wonder if I could have saved him if I tried a little harder. And I wonder why I let him take my life and turn it into the sadness it now is. And I nearly picked up the phone and called Celia and then I remembered Celia doesn’t care. So I went outside and I walked along the black path to work where I stayed until long after the shop had closed, trying to forget in all the papers and dust I was sorting but everywhere I was and everything I did was remember. I remembered Patrick of course I did I promised him I would. And he promised he would forget me, because I wasn’t worth remembering and I know that it is true. He said that that night. And the next morning he didn’t move and he didn’t breathe and I didn’t cry because he wasn’t mine. And they found a note with my handwriting that said goodbye and I don’t remember writing it. Nobody knows how he stopped moving and stopped breathing but I think they do and I think I did something and now I wonder if I should stop moving and stop breathing and I know no one will cry because I am no one’s.