[Lo and behold, a pretty stone, innocently left who knows where in the snow. Within it, a fairly straightforward summation of its owner's youth, told in flashes, vignettes, quick bursts that bleed freely into one another with no order beyond being seemingly chronological.
A child, perhaps a little young to be walking to school alone, does precisely that. This is the heart of swampland, almost oppressively lush on all sides, all but screaming with wildlife. She seems nonplussed. Pleased, even. Plenty to peer at on the way.
Some pair activity in class. To clear, if mild, dissatisfaction, she's working with the teacher. The appeal is diminished when there's no classmates one might be excited to choose from, it seems.
A recess, spent birdwatching up in a tree. Nothing else to do. Swings are all taken, nobody wants to play much of anything.
A return home, greeted by nobody. Too nice a day to spend inside, and after a moment's rummaging through narrow cupboards in a small kitchen she's right back out - looking, perhaps, the happiest she'll be through all of this. Flat on her stomach in front of still waters, observing alligators from precariously high overhanging branches, walkman at her hip, the closest she comes to being in an element. Years blink by in this manner. She and the thick of the wilderness, nearing peace.
School remains the domain of solo-partner projects, lunches taken with no company but headphones and occasionally a book, valentines spent only as a receptacle for unwanted chalky hearts, walks to and from, peering around a little more desperate for noise now.
They're old enough to be fighting, now, and it's more than once a gauntlet is thrown down over the well being of a salamander, a nesting bird, a toad. She loses as often as she wins, but she doesn't ever stop.
A mother is always present for what seems to be dinners at home, but she and her daughter are both clearly lost in their own worlds. The boys get old enough that fighting girls get to be gauche, and bruises largely cease to be a fixture of her appearance. The teenaged years are...quieter, overall. Resigned, if sadder for newfound self awareness. Perhaps the worst of it all is staring out a window, remembering something funny, and just beginning to turn before remembering nobody would want to hear it.
Then the Misty of today, lingering to the sides of a room with several other women, looking distinctly ill at ease. Curled up in a carefully decorated little shack in the wilderness, staring at the ceiling while candles burn down. Seated at a bus stop on Los Angeles, looking thoroughly dead to the world around her.
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SAD OPALS FROM THE VOID ABOVE
A child, perhaps a little young to be walking to school alone, does precisely that. This is the heart of swampland, almost oppressively lush on all sides, all but screaming with wildlife. She seems nonplussed. Pleased, even. Plenty to peer at on the way.
Some pair activity in class. To clear, if mild, dissatisfaction, she's working with the teacher. The appeal is diminished when there's no classmates one might be excited to choose from, it seems.
A recess, spent birdwatching up in a tree. Nothing else to do. Swings are all taken, nobody wants to play much of anything.
A return home, greeted by nobody. Too nice a day to spend inside, and after a moment's rummaging through narrow cupboards in a small kitchen she's right back out - looking, perhaps, the happiest she'll be through all of this. Flat on her stomach in front of still waters, observing alligators from precariously high overhanging branches, walkman at her hip, the closest she comes to being in an element. Years blink by in this manner. She and the thick of the wilderness, nearing peace.
School remains the domain of solo-partner projects, lunches taken with no company but headphones and occasionally a book, valentines spent only as a receptacle for unwanted chalky hearts, walks to and from, peering around a little more desperate for noise now.
They're old enough to be fighting, now, and it's more than once a gauntlet is thrown down over the well being of a salamander, a nesting bird, a toad. She loses as often as she wins, but she doesn't ever stop.
A mother is always present for what seems to be dinners at home, but she and her daughter are both clearly lost in their own worlds. The boys get old enough that fighting girls get to be gauche, and bruises largely cease to be a fixture of her appearance. The teenaged years are...quieter, overall. Resigned, if sadder for newfound self awareness. Perhaps the worst of it all is staring out a window, remembering something funny, and just beginning to turn before remembering nobody would want to hear it.
Then the Misty of today, lingering to the sides of a room with several other women, looking distinctly ill at ease. Curled up in a carefully decorated little shack in the wilderness, staring at the ceiling while candles burn down. Seated at a bus stop on Los Angeles, looking thoroughly dead to the world around her.
The long and short of it, really.]