The Farmer and the Girl

Chapter Ten - The Spinning Ballerina

The look of surprise her family held when she told them she was leaving annoyed Ava a little, did they really expect her to stay forever? Was her mother not worried about that possibility? But it was all right, that mild annoyance proved she was gradually returning to her normal self, convinced and fully prepared for anything she wanted to do.

She waved goodbye from the window till the faces of her family blurred as the carriage went on. It felt it was only yesterday when she first arrived, bored and unable to anticipate anything good to come out of this vacation. She recalled how her heart pounded upon reaching the new setting, and now her heart was beating the same, fast and accelerating at leaving that same new place to return to her old one. The concept of familiarity easily adaptive over few months.

***

The noises of the station were a relief from the silent passivity of the journey and the countryside. It was not something she was not accustomed to; the noise, the crowd... she was not ought to be overwhelmed, she did not allow herself to be. This was the first step on her way to go back to her normal routine, but her heart still have not slew down yet.

Dragging her two bags behind her, she left the train station. She did not order a carriage, she needed to walk down and feel the city air again. The easy option of course was to take a carriage to the ballet school, leave her luggage there then go for her ritualistic walk. What she was doing now, dragging two heavy bags behind her was stupid, and her mind already fretted over this trivial choice but she needed to walk right now, she could not afford to be inside anything, not the warmth of a carriage or the suffocation of the school.

Ava looked around the busy streets, not a single empty corner or sidewalk. Some people were rushing down, others took their time and strolled down the streets leisurely. There were also people who merely stood at their balconies and watched. It was not that different from the countryside. In reality, Ava knew they were all doing the same performance yet the city offered a different shade of colors upon it unlike back in the farms where the farmers are stuck to limited movements scheduled along precise dates; sew, plough, reap. This little different sameness assured Ava further, drawing a relieved smile from her tightly pressed lips till now. Then she huffed as she realized that despite her desire to walk down and explore the streets as if for the first time, she was actually heading down the ballerina school road. She shrugged deeming it a good idea, she had to put away her luggage, seriously, it was starting to kill her back.

On her way to the dancing school, the girl spotted the souvenirs and toys shop she liked, and to her surprise, even after more than three months, the ballerina figurine she admired was still displayed at the shop's front. Her smile grew larger as she leaned to the glass and watched it intently; she was definitely buying it this time, a push to herself. She was a ballet dancer after all! Ava's eyes widened at first with pleasure and kept tracking the little figure. They slowly narrowed round after round, her smile fading along; the small figurine dressed in the classical white tutu spun and spun around itself, never out of track in a precise timed movement, head leaning to the side behind highly crossed arms, never raising its downcast gaze, spinning to a melody the girl could not hear from behind the glass. It maintained a graceful move and pose, an unbroken rhythm while remaining trapped inside the reflective glass of the snow globe, there spinning and spinning.

The End.