I have a wish...

(image: margaretdurow)

In that resilient span of a moment, where the icy insensate sea watches with scrutinity, she peers from her rigid squared shoulders. Fracturable and inanimate, she stands like a duck out of it’s element. Her pallid pale face contrasting acutely with the cerulean crispness of the sky.

She walks wobbly into the sea. One step at a time and with every little step, the coarse grain of sand seeps in between her toes.

One … two … three, the rawness of the sea and the buttery goldness of the sun gradually engulfs her.

The load’s weighing her down

and

down

and down.

Ghostly white, like the fallen remains of virgin snow, a little girl stands in the midst of a busy Saturday crowd. The hustle and bustle of the city life, the foreign faces and the blank expressions melding into a blur. A frail old lady stands, unsure and frustrated, trapped in the whirlwind of people and their ideas. The thinning in her scalp is evident, the white in her hair a weak grey, and her wrinkles are deep and etched. The city is big; the networks stretched and expanded, hands sprawling and crawling, ruthlessly seizing every opportunity that comes.

The old lady shakes her head disapprovingly, an aged cynicism wafting into the air. She feels a slight breeze. "It's cold, the city is cold." She shivers, not from the chill of the wind, but of something else.

The pale little girl pushes her way towards the old lady.