That Girl

This is the story of a girl I used to know, a girl who wove endless dreams with the stars in her eyes, a girl who shriveled with fear if something rattled in the darkness of her room, the same girl who never though twice about venturing into the woods alone. If she saw a bug on the ground she made a point of walking slowly because she seriously felt that loud thuds might give the bug a heart attack, who would have heard of such a silly theory.

She cried buckets for the characters on the pages of some stupid tacky novel or a really silly movie but if you hurt her she won’t shed a drop of that tear, I always found that method of self preservation a little strange.

I remember one day in the 2nd grade she arrived in class drenched in the heavy summer rain, our teacher took one look at her and obviously decided it would not do to have one of her students falling sick and asked if there was anyone who could take her home. She pointed at this boy in our class and said “He can take me home, we are neighbors.” The whole class burst out laughing as she stood there bewildered and slopping wet, wondering what she had said that was so funny. It never stuck her that boys and girls were two different species, which normally as a rule did not mix well together.

I don’t know when or how it happened but I lost touch with that girl. Occasionally I see her eating ice creams in the chilly winter or sharing a bar of chocolate with a stray dog, I can see she is happy. Oh how I miss that girl! Maybe I should have held on to her and believed in all those dreams she had. But people like her would never survive in this world and I am a survivor.