Starts With Home; Ends With Less

I had finally drifted off to sleep when the green light came back, shocking me awake. It was time to move on again.

I wasn't sure if the light came more frequently now, or if I was so tired time was now moving faster than usual.

The light didn't care that I had no where to go.

I gathered my belongings, and moved on.

The sun was out in full force, without a cloud in the sky. My skin was red from it.

So why was I so cold?

My stomach was hollow. I wondered how long it had been since I had eaten.

It was time to go to the church again.

They handed me soup, a roll, and a cookie.

The food hurt my stomach, but in a different way that the hunger did.

Variety is the spice of life!

I saw the green light again, far away this time. I did not give it the chance to find me.

I moved on.

Desperate for sleep, I found a large rock in a park to hide behind. Maybe this time the green light would have trouble finding me?

It took a long time to relax enough to fall asleep. I do not know how long I slept before the light was back, urging me to move again.

How did it find me so fast!?

My legs shook with effort as I gathered my items to move again.

I wasn't sure how long I could keep going.

I wasn't sure why I had to keep going, either.

Why me? Why would the green light come for me?

What did I do to deserve this?

As I walked away, I remembered my life. I had done everything I was supposed to do. I did well in school. I did my chores. I listened to my parents. I cared for, and about, my family. I did everything the bible and society told me I should do.

I was a good girl.

At least I tried my hardest to be.

Others did not try as hard as I did, yet they were left alone to sleep, and had food enough to eat. I would see them sitting in restaurants, smiling and laughing.

Until they saw me, anyway.

I would always make the smiles run, the same way I had to run from the green light.

Maybe that was why it chose me. I made everyone unhappy, and therefore didn't deserve to be around polite society because of this.

Yeah, that was probably why.

I needed rest.

And warmth.

I walked until I couldn't hold myself up any longer, and I collapsed on the street.

I woke up feeling like I was on fire, but I couldn't open my eyes. I crawled, blind, into the closest building I could. I shut the door quickly behind me, leaning against the door. I could feel the unbearable heat on the other side.

I felt my eyes, and found a thick, honey-like substance on them. I slowly picked it off, along with my eyelashes. I could see again, but with spots of crusty yellow still affecting my sight.

I was in a hallway with stained brown carpet. I heard the laughter of children to the left, the flush of a toilet on the right, and the clatter of pool balls straight ahead.

The heat was becoming unbearable again, yet I was just so cold.

So very cold.

I crawled towards the bathrooms and cleaned off what seemed like years of collected filth. Then I drank water until it sloshed in my empty stomach.

I crawled past the laughing children. They did not see me, as a door separated us.

Why could I not be in there, with other the children? Would I be welcomed there? I was a child, too. Wasn't I?

I wasn't sure anymore.

I crawled down the hall, down the stairs, and began to hear the sound of deeper laughter and clinking glasses alongside the thunks of balls hitting one another.

The laughing voices gave me a drink that warmed my insides and tasted like delirium.

I woke some time later. I had a plank of wood inches from my face. My clothes were a stone's throw away.

The green light hovered over the discarded clothing. It was waiting for me.

I pulled myself out of the half coffin that was a toy for grown men hours before, and dressed myself.

The clothes were badly torn, but they were all I had.

I walked slowly for what seemed like days. I heard the taunts and screams of people who saw me, though I did not see them.

I only saw the green light, floating behind me, pushing me forward.

Always pushing.

My god, I was cold.

So very cold.

I was empty in more ways I could count. A hollow sack. A scarecrow that chases away more than crows.

So cold.

I drank and breathed in fire. It made me forget.

I needed to forget.

The colorful noises that always surrounded me would hurt me sometimes. It made it hard to stay away from that horrible light.

It floated against my shoulder, a cold fire attached to me. There was no escape now.

So

So

Cold.

I could move no longer. I lay in the street, and felt the green light push its way slowly

Painfully

into me.

I was frozen from the inside out.

No amount of fire I consumed could reach that icy core.

I was the light, and it was me.

It moved inside of me, forcing me to comply.

I was its puppet now.

It found me food, shelter, and family again.

But I wasn't me anymore.

Perhaps I never was.

Regardless, I would never be myself again.

...I had no feelings on the subject.