It was dark outside, the hands on the old clock tower moved lazily from one number to the other, dragging itself like a sleepy drunkard about to fall over on the concrete pavements of London. It was nearing midnight, that’s for sure. But still, the night dragged on.
Even in the darkened hours of the night, the rain carelessly poured down over the sleeping city. Droplets of water bounced off the roofs and pavement, showering the deserted streets and avenues, composing a beautiful harmony as the city echoed back each tiny splash of a raindrop on the wall or the delicate clink-clanks as they rushed down houses’ water pipes and balconies. The yellow street-lights, blurred by the thick curtains of rain, casted an eerie warmth over the vacant arteries of London. One may compare the colour of their dull halos to that of sweet molten butter that lost its grace after a fort-night or the ghostly light of a phantom passing lamentably over its grave. Tenderly, the wind added its humble contribution to the melancholy sight by swaying the liquid curtains side to side to its own little rhythm and fashioned up small waves that lapped gently at the cement shore.
A passerby in a hurry would have thought the streets to be abandoned. However, if one just looked a little closer, pass the mystical performance of nature, he would have caught sight of a tiny figure jumping merrily under the assault of God’s molten arrows.
A small red umbrella in hand that matched perfectly with her bright rubber boots, the little girl jumped and hopped into puddles big and small on the pavements. Her small body would create a splash every time it landed into the newly made pool of water, and every time it would cause a childish smile to grace her innocent angelic face and a giggle would bubble its way up her little throat. She wore a yellow raincoat that was a wee bit too big for her baby form and so reached all the way to the beginning of her boots and the sleeves would have covered her tiny hands if they weren’t rolled up to her wrists. Adorned on her head was a hat with the same colour. Her sole appearance brightened up the entire corner of the dark, graying scene.
“Pitter patter, pitter patter
Down comes the rain today
Clouds are forming in the sky,
Inside we’ll have to stay.”
Lovingly, the wind carried the little girl’s song, along with her voice as clear as a chiming bell, through the curtains of rain, the eerie yellow street-lights, the small waves lapping gently at the cement shore and the vacant streets of London.
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The women stumbled along the sidewalk, the rain was still carelessly pouring down the sleeping city, tiredness and frustration evident on her face. She was no more than twenty-four summers, but already she looked like she should have been thirty-eight.
With a gray handbag slung onto her right shoulder, the woman walked down the slippery pavement in a pair of standard 4.5 inches black heels. Her raven hair, which was tied neatly in a black plastic band in the beginning of the day, now thrown together in a messy pony tail at the back of her head, a few strands would escape the bound and tumbled sloppily down her face now and then. Her professional pair of rectangular black-framed glasses sat on the bridge of her nose which she had to take down every few minutes to wipe the heavy drops of water off it to allow her at least a clearer sight of wear she was going. She wore a formal business suit that consisted of a gray pencil skirt that went just pass her knees, a plain white blouse and a standard black jacket, even though soaking wet by now, not a single fold of her uniform-like clothes was out of place. She was anyone’s expectation of a young female lawyer, a bearable face, formal, neat, professional, and mentally exhausted. Nothing more, nothing less.
As ordinary as the woman may appeared to be, her story was not, and in fact far from it. Fate had not been kind to her, landing her in the slump of society without a face in the world that she knew. Digging the way out of the place that fate condemned one to was hard, digging the way out on a pair of bare, feminine hands was twice as challenging. Through her time of existence, she had confronted many sides and faces of society, most of them hideous and deformed rather than pretty and colourful like a young girl’s fantasy. She didn’t mind, she’d never believe in fairytales anyways. To her, they were illusions, created to bask a human being in their own private pink world just to be smashed down with a hammer and shattered pieces flying everywhere, piercing into one’s flesh and soul, never meant to be healed but scarred for the rest of eternity. She despised fairytales. Life had thrown sticks and stones at her, daggers and razor blades, poison and tornados, still she made it through, because, as she would often say, she had stuck to the righteous and logic roots of life and not strayed into the realm of nonsense fantasies.
And when she thought she finally had a hold on happiness, a thing that she believed only to existed beyond her wildest dreams, a feeling that got her soaring above the seventh cloud, a sense of fulfillment that ran from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes, when she thought she was finally content, only to have it snatched so cruelly right out of her hands, like ripping a candy away from a baby. The morals of her life had back-fired her. By keeping herself so disclosed from the pleasure of fantasies and joy presented before her eyes, she didn’t know how to defend herself when they ever so suddenly crashed into her cold, pragmatic life. And so she let herself be submerged by it, walking straight and blindly into the trap that welcomed her with open arms. And now when that delusional happiness was stripped away from her, her wall came crashing down with it, and she herself tumbled down the mountain of rubbles that took her so long to build up and landed on the harsh concrete floor of reality with a painful thump. Everything felt so unreal to her. She was lost. Her morals were gone. And she was left with nothing but a soul-less zombie walking the surface of this earth.
The woman collapsed down onto the sidewalk, unable to carry on anymore. The hardness of the world finally caught up to her, and it was all too much for her to handle. The rain still carelessly poured down the sleeping city, mingled with the tears that streamed down her face. The woman pulled her legs up to her chest, buried her face into her knees and sobbed out loud for the first time in her twenty-four years life.
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“Thunder crashes, boom boom boom!
We see lightning too.
Don’t go outside,
Until the storm is through.
Pitter patter, drip, drip, drop!
Pitter patter, drip, drip, drop!”
The little girl jumped and hopped into puddles big and small on the pavement, her voice carried on the happy tone. Suddenly, her rubber boots came to a halt from its clumsy splashing movements as a shaky, coiled up figure on the sidewalk caught her sight through the thick curtains of rain. Slowly, the little girl let her arm dropped to her side, lowering the red umbrella to the point when its tip was scratching the cement ground. Slowly and carefully, with her blue eyes round with curiosity and her head with the yellow hat cocked slightly to one side, she approached the sobbing woman sitting huddled on the ground.
When she was right by the woman’s side, the girl observed her with the eyes and mind of a child. She watched her shoulders rose and fell with every sob she took and the little girl knew something was upsetting the woman, and it made her sad. She didn’t like being sad. And so she didn’t like anyone being sad either. Her tiny hand found its way onto a shaking shoulder.
The woman, suddenly aware of the warm contact, broke from her sobbing trance and lifted her face and was met with a child’s innocent face and a pair of bright blue eyes staring at her with concern and a sense of bewilderment, even though her glasses were smudged and fogged up from all her crying. The little girl leaned in closer.
“Are you alright, miss?” Asked the girl with her childishly sweet voice that even in her state of depression, the woman found to be utterly adorable, “You look so sad. I don’t like people to be sad. It makes me sad, too. Everyone should be happy.” She said. The innocent words that came to her so thoughtfully at her most despair time from the most unexpected source caused a smile to grace the woman’s exhausted features and she replied softly, “No. I’m not sad. Don’t you worry.”
With her gaze still fixed on the woman’s face, the girl sat down next to her as the woman took down her glasses to wipe it and put it back on again. She looked back at the little girl next to her, mimicking her sitting position with her innocent gaze and a smile found its way onto her face again.
