• Shattering the Surface


    She stood at the edge of the street, staring straight down at her feet. Past her feet. The darkening sky reflected her boots, then her pants, then her coat, then her small face and big blue eyes. Her golden curls fell like a curtain around her face, restrained only by a thin barrette on the left side of her head.

    It was the upsidedown trees that captured her attention the best. Always looking upwards, she knew for a fact that trees could only be grown straight up and never stray from that path. It was the way of the world.
    ("Mommy, why are the leaves always at the top?"
    "Because that's just how they grow."
    "Why do they     have to grow that way?"
    "It's the way they were made." )
    But now that she had taken the time at the edge of the curb at the large puddle that almost flooded over her feet there, she saw a new path, a new direction only achieved by those who chose to see it. A whole new world just at her fingertips.

    She crouched closer to the dirty water. Shifting her vision, she could see the bottom of the dirty puddle, road grease filming over the top of the cloudy water. A short cigarette butt floated. A drowned, grimy, mossy leaf stuck to the pavement. No, not ideal. She went back to her reflection and her little flop-sided world.

    She tilted her head slightly, still staring down.

    It was so strange! The leaves fell back to her, little black spots hurtling toward the sky. Clouds rolling under her feet in the colorless space above. Her eyes, closer now, were twice, three times, four times bigger than before. The reflection of the water reflected in her eyes, two mirrors facing each other to create an endless repeating pattern of a girl in an upsidedown universe. A wrinkled tree. Rolling, puffy clouds.

    Plop. Startled, she leapt back from the curb. The little world she was drawn to shattered. The wrinkled tree screamed at the end of the world that was surely coming now. She watched the world return to a peace only puddles could obtain. The cigarette circled to a stop. The clouds fell silent. The girl's face returned, unscarred. Full of admiration, curiosity of the upsidedown, flop-sided trees and the girl's face that somehow matched her own, only grew closer and closer with time.

    ("Who's that girl?"
    "That's you, Holly. See? She has your eyes and your hair."
    "That's not me. She's in that box. I'm right here."
    "That's only your reflection, Sweetie."
    "She isn't me. She just looks a lot like me is all." )

    Closer. And closer. Five, six, seven times bigger. She could clearly see the trees in those eyes now. Big, blue, wrinkled trees and big, blue, puffy clouds.

    Closer still to the perfect water. Those mesmorizing eyes that everyone had said were hers. So big and blue.

    "Holly!" A shriek came from behind. She was jerked backwards, away from her little wrinkled, puffy, blue world. Arms trailing behind her jacket, small grasping hands. A shocked face. Big, blue, frightened eyes. A car bumper inches from her body. Shouting, yelling, blaming. Pointed fingers. Angry faces. Tears on a child's face.

    The wheels backed away. The wrinkled tree disappeared in the mess. The clouds turned knarled and misshaped. Dark, awful shapes in the ground. A cigarette butt on the sidewalk. A drowned, grimy, mossy leaf smashed into dirt. The puddle drained away.

    And she continued to cry.

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    Ok so there really is no inspiration for this, besides the pic. I found the pic and continued to write about it. Totally epiphany stuff, really just practicing I guess. Sorry if it's so confusing, but I'm not going to change it. Critics are absolutely welcome, but it's not going anywhere besides little tiny grammar/spelling mistakes.

    Hope you enjoyed.~