Quote:
The Holidays are supposed to be a time for cheer, and yet there's something strangely dismal about tonight. You're out by yourself and you pass by a building completely coated in a strange sheet of ice. When you catch your reflection, you're trapped reliving your loneliest moment. The illusion can last for as long or short a time as you like, but the hollow sensation lingers even after the memory fades. What memory did you find yourself reliving and, now that it's over, what are you going to do to shake this mood?
((Word count minus bible verse: 574))
It was cold but that was expected since the ‘Holidays’ were right down the line, in just over a week Christmas would be here and then the New Year would be starting. Another year, another season, another…. Everything. It was meant to be a happy time but that's not how Shannon was currently feeling. Honestly she felt more grumbly then cherry. She would make a good scrooge right then, that or a grinch. Muttering to herself, mostly about the cold, the curvy woman passed a building completely coated in ice, probably a fire that had been put out was her thought when she glanced over at it, catching a brief image of herself in the oddly reflective ice. She didn’t even realize she had stopped to stare, her mind already wrapped in the past.
Late fall. Wet and chilly day. The grass was brown and the leaves had all fallen, the tree’s skeletal branches clawed at the laden sky. The clouds gray and dreary, not quite releasing their payload of rain, just letting out a pervasive mist that just settled on everything like a damp blanket. One might ask what was so bad about this day, it was just another fall day so it really wasn’t a big deal but for the nineteen year old it was the emptiest day of her life.
She stood huddled in her ragged jacket, her only pair of heels trying to sink through the astroturf that was put out under the small canopy that stretched above her. Gray eyes stared into space as the only other person who was with her droned on. “As they say in Ecclesiastes 3:1-4. ‘For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; and a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.’” The priest continued down on that track for a while longer. Muttering about how it was God’s plan and that all were in God’s hands, and crap like that. She didn’t care. She didn’t feel anything right now. Not the cold. Not the invasive wet. She didn’t even glance down towards the gleaming wood of the casket and the wilting flowers that were placed on it.
Finally the elderly man finished up with a quiet something or another about him giving her some time alone, and walked off towards the only other car in the cemetery other than hers. Finally her eyes dropped to take in the simple casket and the sad flowers that were more like pitty flowers then mouring flowers. This whole pathetic circus was built into her grandfather’s will, it was really the only thing that he could afford. They hadn’t ever really been what one would call rich but he had always done his best for her. She never went hungry. Never went without clean clothes. Was never really alone in the world… now she was. There was no one who cared if she ate, or showered, or even got home at night.
The one person in the whole world who cared for her was dead.
She was alone.
All alone.
After an eternity of just staring at the glossy wood the young woman reached out and placed a shaking hand on the casket for a moment before turning and walking off, deeper into the cemetery. Never once saying a thing.
Shannon blinked in surprise when someone jostled her as they passed. “Excuse you,” She snapped at the man, sneering at him before she turned on her heel and stomped away. She needed a drink and a good lay… not necessarily in that order.
