It's been so long. So long. I don't think it has been that long.
Has it? Eyes rubbed groggily, and a faint sigh of protest at the
sheer tiresomeness of it. No, tiresome is not a proper word for
what has been. What has been?

Alone she sits, forlorn, the soiled plainness of the simple dress
clumping about her. She ineffectively claws at it, wishing it were
comfortable and wearable again. It remains its heavy, bunched-up self,
and she leaves it at that, returning to her little mindplay.

In the play, everything is good again. The bad times haven't started
yet. Staring out through the shimmering gold, and a translucence she
had always known. Comforting, enveloping, there was nothing but her,
her friends, and her parents.

...

She stares out across the rippling vastness she sits beside, legs
curled up under her, the silence inside and out deafening, unfamiliar.
Nobody. Nobody at all. The seafaring birds a mere shimmer, or speck
in the azure sky above the ocean. Food. Food food food. It seems they
only cared about that, and nothing more, as the word gently stirs
in her mind, quietly suggesting itself to her consciousness, before
drifting away to be as faint as the calls of the birds themselves.

...

It was a sudden decision, one that seemed to puzzle even close friends
of the family. The surface? A few had never been there. Some were
afraid of it. She didn't care. She was happy, and contented in her
lot, she had her friends, and everything she ever wanted. And her
friends could come too, right?

Right?

She could still see the look on her best friend's face. Her childhood
friend, too shocked to wave from the docking bay as the transport moved
away. The look of sheer anguish on that face would stay with her forever.
The tears, and the silent, almost mouthed plea. "Let me come chu!".

...

The play ends, and her eyes are open. It is just the sandy shore again.
The birds, the sea, and...

Someone else.

Not a muscle moved. It was that same kindness, that same quiet benevolence.
It couldn't be. Concentrate.

> ... Mo..Moth...Mother...? <

Nothing. The disappointment, and every wretched burden of the last few months
snap. There is no more tolerance, no more...

Great salty tracks forge themselves down her grubby cheeks, and her head leans
forward in her lap, as deep sobs rack her tiny body, and she weeps for her lost
parents, the friends she left behind, and the hopelessness of it all.

...

Slowly, the sobs stop, and there are no more tears. What has it been, hours? days?
Who knows? She flops over on her side, and lies prone. Still, someone is close by.
But no-one but Mother will do. And mother is gone. So, here it ends.

Wiping her face with one sodden sleeve, she lolls limply on her side, and closes
her eyes.

By Citan OOC on Sunday, July 15, 2001 - 05:49 am:

*TWITCH*