A Story

A Story

                                                                                                                                                              She puts way too much effort into her appearance. She’s just exercising. Little bits of fog hang over all of the trees she sees as she treads on the concrete walkways. Moving quietly along suburbia, she notices. Just like every morning at a quarter to seven before. Doorstep, lawn and garage, all pristine and glimmering, even in the gloom of a September Thursday. Each house perfectly groomed as though it was a spaniel preparing for the dog show. The yard. Embedded with tulips or lilies. Artificially colored woodchips line the sheered bushes. Sometimes she sees typical shapes such as vertical rectangles or little puffs here and there.

She walks on. Most of the residences are filled with lawyers or stockbrokers. Inhabiting this surreal and strange, magazine worthy quarters with a busty stay at home mother to accompany them to bed every night like clockwork. Those gals that always have a glass of red in their hands. They’ll have children too you know, a girl and a boy. Brunettes. Maybe the one little girl plays the flute. She’s shy, very shy. She has the most captivating blue eyes. A very thoughtful one she grew up to be. Maybe the boy plays soccer. He wants to do more with his life, though, those parents don’t understand. He wants to play Shakespeare in the school play, but… no. They would never let their boy act or even worse, sing. “He’s an athlete,” the father says. “He works hard, he trains right. And he’s not getting any younger, Patty. He’s gonna get that scholarship to Stanford in his senior year gosh darnet. He’s going to have a future. Like I did when I was his age.”

The little girl wants to draw and paint like her Aunt. Though, the Aunt isn’t allowed around anymore. She was thought as a bad influence on the children. The little girl wants to learn French when she grows up. She wants to travel to the place called the Eiffel Tower. She wants to explore the world like all of the girls she reads about at the library. She doesn’t want to spend hours learning Bach for no logical reason.

Years pass, it’s a short story. Boy and girl grow up and leave the parents. They pursue sports and classical music like they were told, have kids of their own, and never return to thank their parents for their so called, ‘right doings’. The parents are sad. They live alone, with nothing else to say, do or prove. Years pass. The father dies of lung cancer. Mother sits in her chair, wondering where the time has gone. Wishing she could’ve done it all over. Wishing she was on her walk, yet again through suburbia. Observing a life that she thought would never be hers. She stands up, gathers her strength… and looks out the window. She sees herself. Just walking through the bits of fog, and away to begin her life.