The Long Thaw Part one:

She sat on the other side of the pond alone. The sun beamed across the water proudly as the vibrant sounds of reggae filled the air. People danced and cheered in fellowship. Everything around her was vibrant and full of life.

The golden warmth of the summer fell upon her skin like dancing dragons, flames running across her sandy brown skin. Still she shivered. Maybe it was her iced mocha. Or maybe it was the memory of the last time she’d been at the Brimond Country Club Pond.

The last time she was here the icy presence of rejection filled the air. Rejection and degeneration. As such, it was a torrid and horrible day. Degeneration played in the icy puddles, forming tiny potholes that shook her to her core on the car ride there. Even now she she stood under the last minute tent that had been installed that trailed the ground all the way up the long drive to the club. The long roads dipped in an unusually unkempt manner to the club. Even on a frost driven day like this one, the roads would have been filled.

She didn’t even suppose that she could blame them. Or maybe she could, because everything seemed to be against her. Even time itself had conspired against her and her plans Degeneration in rime itself. The way it had started snowing in the middle of September.

Even the wind seemed to be cryomg about the betrayal. She-the wind- rebelled and froze over the Earth. ‘If you don’t love me, then I don’t love you,’ she said in her cold resignation.

She looked down into the pond and saw herself as she was back then. On that day, discarded love letters melted into the icy pond directly from her heart. Her heart bled out onto the ice. Her story still playing in the summer of her return, but no one, not even the water could tell a story like the scorned.

On that day the pond was frozen over. The ice seemed to cling to the awkward quietness and haste that filled the air. The coldness certainly clung to me, but like hot ice. On the outside I was cold and frigid, but inside of me was hot enough to melt the ice and everyone in the park.

I watched the candle lanterns float into the air, trying not to wonder about what happens when they landed. Or who; if anyone, would pick them up. Technically I didn’t really care. It was all in my mind. My minds eye; watching, searching for anything to focus on besides the cold.

But they made it hard.

Black clad people humbled themselves with lowered heads and whispering tones that made me feel ticklish inside. Not one of these men, women or non binaries were like this in real life and not one was going to be like this after they left me to my lonesome.

Phoneily polite people quieted amongst the Vivaldi and Bach like wolves in bushes. Waiting for the moment that this was all over so they could talk about each other with knives for tongues and eyes for daggers to spill more blood with.

Not one would remain quiet and saddened after this show of faux humility and humble opulence.

Like, who was Malia Jamison kidding with her Balenciaga shades in the winter time? Probably high. I hid my scoff behind a glass of champagne.

& Who did Jack Asgard think he was with his three bodyguards? His name should have been Jack Assard.

& who in the hell said that it was okay to start a fund raiser?

I must have looked into the icy mirror of the pond maybe fifteen (twenty five) times that day. Fund raiser? Did I look like I needed a fund raiser?

I didn’t need any of this.. Stuff. The show, the money, the famous faces surrounding me, nor did I need the money. Least of all did I need the money.

Me in my Armani suit and Red bottom heels and Armani bag, shades and sunhat. The phoniest of all the plastic faces there. At least my face was real.

Sort of. I, myself, had on the phoniest politest smile and my most polite voice. When I was really screaming inside.

Social normative roles indicated that I must be sad, not in the actual rage that I was in at the moment.

Actual rage that filled my body with heat that should have melted that whole entire F#@%ing park down, including the slides and everything on the other side. But quiet rage met the cold air and melted me into dust somehow.

After that day nothing was the same.

If you say my name twice, I might look at you strangely. Or strangle you in my mind.

I might kill you if you ever even think you know how I feel inside.

I might cry at the drop of a dime in some far away place.

Don’t say that you’re sorry. Don’t say that you care. And certainly don’t offer me “ifs’ and ‘anything at all’s’, if you can’t fix it.

In fact, don’t say anything at all… if you can’t fix it. Silence was all that I wanted to hear at the moment.

She shivered again, taking note to herself of how the water in the pond had melted, but the ice in her heart still remained, even after all these years.