Folklore (Taylor Swift)

SEVEN

James, 75 years.

I was seven when I met Betty. Betty. The word rings a bell in my mind. It causes an ache in my heart. It fills me with warmth, pain and longing. I think of her once in a few years.

I can't walk now. So I sit in my wheelchair on the balcony, staring at the wind blowing outside and the setting sun. I live in the countryside. I heard Betty moved away to a big city near the beach. But my memory is getting weaker day by day.

I see lights in the faraway buildings that appear like fireflies. And it takes me back to the summer days when Betty would try to catch fireflies in the park.

"Hey girl! Don't you have work to do? Stupid mother's stupid daughter! Is it not dark?!" Her father would scream as he returned from work.

The park was old and abandoned. It was right next to my house. A street parted from the road in front of the park. There was a garage and an electronic storage room in the road and then there was Betty's house. After a few blank abandoned blocks there were a few shops and a salon. And then the street connected to another broad road. If we took a left turn after reaching that road and pass four houses we will reach our high school, the place where it all went wrong.

Okay, enough geographic details.

Betty and I met on her 7th birthday. I had seen her before. Observed her. Wanted to talk to her. For nearly a month. I was new to town. My father always lived here but my mother and I lived in the next town with my maternal grandmother. Also my parents had me when they were really young. My mother was eighteen. My father was twenty three.

My father was a busy man then. My mother was scared and afraid. Her mother was old and had no one but her. So after discussions, my mother decided to raise me in her mother's home.

My father used to come visit us every Saturday evening and went back the next evening. Despite financial, mental and social strain my parents managed to stick together. Sometimes they wondered if they made a mistake moving into parenthood so young. People would often say my mother was too young and she didn't know anything. But my parents had a healthier relationship than any I ever had. When my grandmother passed away my mother moved in with my father. I was seven years and a month old then.

My mother was kind and soft spoken. She was a little distant with a longing in her eyes. What longing? I don't know. Perhaps dreams that never came true. My father was the very same male version. He rarely spoke or displayed any form of emotion except all the routine ones. Yes, we had routine display of emotions!

Every morning my mother would kiss me on the forehead and wake me up. We would all have our breakfast together in silence. Then my father would kiss my mother on the cheek and bid us both goodbye. He worked from 9 in the morning till 5 in the evening. After breakfast I would head to school and my mother would go to work in a nearby supermarket as a sales women.

"Mom!!" I would scream as I flung open the rusty door of our tiny home, on the second floor of an old two storey building that badly needed a new coat of paint. We rented that floor. The lower floor was a storeroom for one of the stores in the nearby city.

"James! You're home." She would say while tying up her hair, putting on her work clothes or arranging something. "I put food on the table. Have it. Wash your face and feet before that."

The next hour always rushed past. My mom fed me, washed me, told me to do my homework and told me to not get hurt. Then she left for work. My uncle worked in the storeroom downstairs so I was safe. My mom would return at around 9 pm.

It was my father who would give me my evening snack and help me with my studies. He would also cook dinner. The two of us would have dinner together. My mother would return home exhausted from work, often with complaints.