Mass communication

Sitting on the fire escape her life seems oddly distant. Friend with the long brown hair and savvy style has gone; spending another one of her days teasing synthetic locks and presenting girls with newly crisp bows on their dollies hair.

The street smells; coming from the land of the pine and the sea this stink is wonderful. Take a deep breath and fill her lungs with filth and pollution. Grey snow is quickly soaking through her jacket but she doesn't feel her skin numbing; in her mind there are footlights and pyrotechnics and face-paint. In reality there are old cigarettes in a dish made in some long ago ceramics class. But this, this is REAL. This must be what LIFE smells like.

And then she scrambles back through the window, scared that somehow she has trespassed on some great TRUTH that should not yet be discovered. Inside is chilled and now she feels the wet on her jacket. There is nothing here to do, nothing to keep her mind off of everything. So she tries an experiment. Mass Text 101.

Happy new years from the Big City.

Two recipients. Just to make it fair, she considers adding a third to this small trap of morals. But the irony, the simplicity of those two names side by side...too perfect to spoil.

The first response she doesn't really need to look at. It's perfect and sweet and wondering why she is so very many miles away in the cold heartless city.

The second, was not as she had hoped but just as she expected.

"Hey, I'm here too! What are you doing tonight? Just got in from Jersey."

Disgusted, fling the phone onto the couch and sit by the window. Breath in, breath out. So very grateful for the thousands of people in the city to protect her from that one poison.

"Next year" she vows "things will be different. Next year there will be a boy who loves me and he will kiss me at midnight and then I will turn into a pumpkin."

And she reaches for the phone and scrolls down her contacts. One deep breath, two deep breaths; not today. Today she won't play coy games, today she isn't the cynical city girl she so wishes to be. Today she is from the ocean and the cliffs and the sickly sweet pine trees.

REPLY

I wish I was there with you too, I miss you lots and lots. But there will be plenty of walks when we get back to school.

SEND.