amandapandathon
It happened in a moment. In a fraction of a fraction of a second. I saw my world fall apart. The blood on the street amongst the glass and the twisted metal. Every fiber of my being was screaming that it couldn't be so. Yet there it was. The end of everything I loved. Gone in the blink of an eye and the screech of brakes that weren't enough.
I sat next to my little brother on that old wooden bench. Mimi swept. That "swoosh woosh" of the bristles against the cobblestoned floor invaded my ears and burrowed its way in. I thought I'd never stop hearing it. That broom shouldn't have been in her hands- it should have been in mine. We should have been in flight, silhouetted against the moon.
I walked up the dusty dirt path to the big wooden building in the distance. My skis were under my arm, growing ever heavier with the long trek. I was alone. It was quiet. This place had clearly been abandoned for some time now. I approached the wide set of stairs and took a deep breath. I walked up that staircase and approached the heavy old door. With a trembling hand I reached out to grasp the beaten metal doorknob.
She had everything in there. Everything that mattered to her was in that strappy bag on her back. Nothing else was out there in the world that she could call her own. She walked under each street lamp as it illuminated her face and the world in short little spots every twenty feet or so. She remembered all she had left. All of her things in the world were on her back.
I am stuck in the sludge of the way society has set me up to fail. I am lost in the system. I have no means to care for myself because my family has ditched me on the side of the road. I don't have an address so nowhere will hire me. I don't have hope other than the government. The big machine that sent me down this path in the first place. They are a large part of the ill of my situation, and yet they are the only thing that gives me any hope.
I look at her watery eyes staring up at me. Judging. Full of hate. Full of childish wonder and childish anger. She is staring and she is stuck in a logic loop that she can't control. She says words she doesn't mean. She makes thoughts she doesn't think. She hurls insults and anger that is inconsequential because she is speaking out of juvenile naivete.
Stop staring. Stop hitting. Stop being the way that you are. Every second is torture listening to you. Every moment is perpetual annoyance and anger and dear god just leave me alone! I am a thunderous storm and a flash of sharp lightning. I am heat of the desert and strike of the snake. Just stop. Just listen. Just don't. I can't cope.