That girl is dead

One second the sky is filled with a cotton candy swirl of pinks and blues, and in the next second, the colors are gone. There are several things I want to tell you, and so many more that will never make sense. Because in the long run, they never mattered. But still, I will tell them, because when I was hurting and sunken in my loneliness, I learned strange things about myself.

I was on my way to class, speed walking through the heavy falling snow, and although I was late, I stopped right before trekking up the burgundy stone stairs. My breathing became slower as I caught it, and as the bell tower sang twelve times; indicating it was noon and that I was in fact late, I turned on my heels and started in the opposite direction.

I had never done that before, and I wish I could tell you what nonsense sparked in my heart for me to walk 5 miles to reach my destination. But I found myself lost in the snow, coming up with games I used to play as a child. The sun was shining down, and cars were passing by in the slushy mucky of the afternoon winter. The air was crisp against my throat and my nose felt colder than the freezing temperature.

I counted the number of red things I could find, until I felt like that number was sufficient to move on to the oranges. But I always hated orange, and it looked too close to red that I never thought it deserved to be counted in a separate category. Figuring out later that I’m just colorblind and orange always looked a lot like red to me. But at that time, I didn’t know that, so I skipped to yellow. I counted my bright yellow jacket, because it was yellow and I counted the sun, even though it looks almost orange, I believed that its golden light would make me feel better. Not that it matters to you, but that was supposed to be my year, I was supposed to make a difference, but you ruined everything.

Pulling my gloves from my hands I realized my fingertips had started turning blue, so I decided to skip green, as it was winter, so there wasn’t much green in the area anyways, and I counted my fingertips as the first blue thing. I didn’t count the sky because that felt like cheating. I put my gloves back on and stopped counting the colors in the world around me. After a while, I was tired of walking, I found myself staring at the entrance of a small art museum. Watching the giant marbled clock stuck to the wall behind the glass doors, I waited till it was exactly 2:01pm, because I didn’t like when the time was exact.

When the hour was exactly noon or 4am the world seemed like it was sick and tired of countlessly counting our time for us, and it was taking a break from its never ending job.

I wish I had my wallet with me, so I could purchase something from the gift shop, but the things they had there were ugly anyways. I walked into the small room lined with black and grey picture frames, the walls were that sort of tan-beige color that sucked the life out of imagination. It was empty, aside from an awkward old lady in an atrocious orange jacket, the collar was lined with white feathers, sitting on the only bench in the very middle of the room. I liked that the room was warm, so when I took my gloves off, I shoved them into my yellow jacket pocket. One of them fell from the small hole and flopped onto the wood floor, just next to my snow boots that were covered in the gritty salty snow muck from outside.

I wanted to break down right there, for missing my class, for the ugly orange jacket and for all the stupid things I wanted to tell you. I could feel the tears weld up in my eyes but still the water wouldn’t fall, and for that I hated you.

I bent down to pick up my blue glove and, in my hands, against my skin, I started thinking about my dad’s old reclining chair. The fabric was worn down and was probably made of a strong corduroy once, before experiencing many children yanking on the ugly skirt and spilt mac and cheese with hot dogs. I start thinking that everyone should watch old movies with their dad, and that if you didn’t have one, I could offer you mine. I thought about how when I was 6, my mom told me that freshly cut grass somehow smelt like watermelon and that now I believe that with every fiber of my being.

How did I forget about all the good things I wanted to tell you?

I stood up and walked over to the lady in the orange jacket. The fabric almost covered her feet, but I could see her ugly black shoes sticking out from before her legs. She was crying, or at least there were tears stuck to the sides of her wrinkly face. I remember feeling jealous that she could cry so easily. I sat down next to her and looked ahead at the painting.

A small child was drowning beneath a frozen pond, and a dog was (presumably barking) above the child on the cracking ice. We couldn’t see anything past those two, and the painting felt so real I reached my arm out to touch it. The lady next to me didn’t say anything as I pressed my oily, sweaty fingers into the dried paint, she didn’t even move as I yanked the painting off the wall and screamed in her face that she should do something, anything to get me to stop. I know you’re not supposed to touch the art in museums, I know I’m not supposed to do a lot of things. The lady in the orange jacket didn’t move a muscle as her thin grey hair fluttered from the breath of my screams.

It took me a few minutes before I realized she was made of wax, and I was completely alone in this tiny art museum.

I remember being angry that someone put her in orange when that wasn’t her color, let alone anyone’s color, because I hated it. I remember putting the painting back on the wall and wishing to myself that I could replace myself with the child drowning in the water. I have forgotten almost everything that year, that was supposed to be my year, but instead I let myself turn on my heels and walk out.

Leaving the museum, I looked up at the strange afternoon sky, one second the above screams at me with blues and pinks, beauty of nature. I feel like if I was a pleasant person, it would’ve been a more enjoyable time, but the sun was going down and my loneliness was back. So, in the next second the colors were gone, and the sky was back to a dull cheating blue.

There are several things I want to tell you, and so many more that will never make sense. Because in the long run, they never mattered. But still, I will tell them, and I want you to know that I don’t hate you anymore.

But now that part of me, that girl, is dead.