She Listens

Tears.

She steps into the schoolyard silently. The rustles of the trees and the whisper of the grass slid into the scene running through her hair and frosting the tips of her fingers, as she moved toward the sound of the whimpering. Glistening tears is all she saw running down her schoolmate’s face. Hidden behind the dumpster and seemingly transparent in the school’s shadow, on the ground the boy in front of her held his body in a ball as if scared to even let air in. Bending down she offered an ear to his troubles. Yes… that was the moment she says her life started. Like a bullet, his pains pierced her heart: stolen money, a lost brother, a broken down father.

She absorbed it all, listening, listening, listening until he had no more words to give her. When his tears ran dry, he stood up. Dust fell from his crumpled clothes and with enlightened eyes he looked to the horizon as if all weight had been lifted off his shoulders. In the wake of his new-found peace he looked to her and handed her the very least that he had. ‘Thanks’ was the last thing she would ever hear from him. With his recovery however, the universe demanded that there be a space for the pain he shed to take root. She would be the victim.

Tears.

Cries at her doorstep, cries for salvation. Yelling from their balcony, her parents threatened to call the police. But how could that threat hold any water, when the police were the bulk of the mob. These broken people offered to her the guilt of their lies, their cheating, and their murders. No matter how strongly her parents wanted to shield her from it, the calls of their sins couldn’t be drowned out by closed curtains or shut windows.

It wasn’t as if she was against listening, she had accepted it as her role long ago. A while ago, she related this acknowledgment to her parents however the curtains stay drawn.

At night, the sound of a shattering window ripples through her body shooting her eyes open rigidly. A disgruntled man crawls through the glass holding his hand out with glossed over eyes reaching desperately for the girl. Unshaved, missing teeth, and a broken down stature. This is who he is. What he was… is long gone. Her composure is disciplined and with serenity she leaves her bed, walking over and sitting down in front of him. He whispers his tale from his parched lips.

Determinedly silent, she waits for him to finish his story while glistening water falling from his eyes stain the carpet beneath their legs. As the sun peaks over the horizon his thoughts run dry.

The man stands with a straightened back and looks toward the rising sun with strength. Turning back he gives her the repeated words she had heard by many before, and departs. An hour later her parents find her sitting on the ground, the shattered glass at her feet, and drop to their knees and hold her body close and weeping. In their arms she no longer finds comfort in their love, but she closes her eyes and pretends to sleep anyway. This is her job. This is why she was placed on this earth, so how could she refuse her purpose?

Tears.

Men, women, children. Grieving masses of people grasp at her legs. They granted her a home larger than she’d ever seen before, where she’ll forever stay awaiting the next hurt person. Where are her parents? She doesn’t remember the day they disappeared. This is who she is. So where they’ve gone hold no value.

Does the public understand her plight? They talk plenty of the trouble she endures. 

“Yes, she’s the victim. However, she’s the only one who understands.” they say.

The only who can make the pain go away, oh how could they lose her? They need her to help them move on, to find strength in their collective tumultuous lives. They come day after day to release their guilt. 

She memorizes every part of them. Every indication of who they are and what they’ve been through. Each story is like bile meshed together, taken from them, but not gone. No not gone, but only hidden in the recesses of her mind. She shows no pained emotions, but how can that be when the weight of the world’s distress rests laboriously on her tiny frame? They can only notice her kind expression.

But do they notice her? 

Do they notice the increasingly visible bags under eyes? Her sluggishness, her tiredness, the sheer intensity of the misery she carries… Of course not, how could they when she never speaks of herself. They are right however. She does understand. And she understands what she believes to be her role in the world.

But will they ever understand how she felt that day? That one quiet Saturday in the late afternoon, so many years ago... The heat of the day had deterred most people from approaching and so she finished her quota early. Through the emptiness of the rooms she had been gifted, she swayed on sore feet. Moving silently once again, she wandered up and down the empty stairway before resting in front of a door to a room she hadn’t explored before. Opening the sliding marble with fragile hands, she found her eyes were caught in the beauty of a simple object.

Towering over her small frame was the clearest mirror she had ever seen and for the first time in a long period of life she saw herself.

Staring at the person intently, she could not realize that it was a reflection. Watching as closely as she could, she attempted to decipher the inevitable pain behind that face, or possibly the tears their eyes had shed. Resolutely the person behind the mirror stood, quiet and unwavering. What did the girl see in that reflection? What past? What future?

That was a secret only she would know. Tired, she brought her hands down and laid on the cold floor, where she closed her eyes and thought of the boy she had met long ago. She wondered where he was or how he was doing. In all of her years, that Saturday her heart only yearned for one thing. She wanted him here with her. 

She needed him now, because maybe the first cured person had the solution. If he truly did have the answer, then she needed his help wholeheartedly. There was a poor girl behind the mirror... who needed to be saved.