Seventeen

By: RDV


She was seventeen.

At seventeen it takes more than anything in this life to be happy. At seventeen finer appreciation for things earned is harder to find, to reason with.

She thought that was all. She thought life was just a long-term partnership with frustration. She thought life didn’t give anyone chance to be a better person. It has imprinted a lasting impression on her, and the picture it made wasn’t lovely.

The rain pattered down, making beelines down the streets. It felt so good. The night was fairly young when she stared out the window to see.

She couldn’t get past the thick miasma called fog that had been stationed in front of her window. It seemed rather to eat the whole room in one bite. Like a vertigo.

But she could feel, so potently, what was there. She knew, even before her mind could calculate the precise answer. She could build up the picture piece by piece. There, holding each other, in warmth and in death. Their smiles the new standard of offense to confront her with.

Did they mean for her to see them like this?

She smiled. The scene didn’t even give her an upstart. She smiled again. Mostly to disprove them. But hey, could they see?

How picturesque. Their happiness no longer so apart now, but one and the same. How she couldn’t feel like that in this lifetime didn’t bother her. She always thought she’d feed on other people’s mishaps. What was happening now though was quite the opposite. She felt nothing at their delight. Unstirred, cold as death, at the sight of things she didn’t care to think about anymore. At least.

Lovers in the rain. It was like a good joke told at a wrong time. She laughed, not because her ignorance was staggering. She laughed because she forgot already how to be hurt. She laughed because she had been salved, there, in the middle of the night with all the wind howling and the impossible happening. She was bent in that direction henceforth. Positive thinking.

Drops of rain ran after the other. She smiled. At seventeen.