Old Posts: Steel Grey Breeze

She emerged from her mother's womb like a burst of sunshine between straying silver clouds. And in that moment, in her baby heart, she knew it was a mistake. Of course no one remembers their baby thoughts and she forgot it as soon as it entered her head. There were more important things to do, like breathe! She was a wisp of a girl, steel grey in colour and with eyes on top of her head. She was glad for those eyes as they helped her look at the sky all the time. She knew the birds by rote and as for the stars, she knew them better than her own thoughts. She was a beautiful girl, full of bubbling laughter and eager to please.
Everyone loved her at school for a day. She heard her mother crying behind the closed bedroom door that night. She did not know why. Little children do what their parents tell them to and the next day, no one spoke to her. Some called her a freak, others threw stones at her, still others whispered and turned away as she passed by.
Her mother stopped her from going to school the next day. She took her beautiful steel grey daughter in her lap and rocked her to and fro as her little girl listened to the beat of her solid heart. She told her that she was as special as the breeze – she would touch everyone's life she waltzed into and make them smile, if only fleetingly. And she told her that someday, someone would love her so helplessly that he would whisk her away and make her feel like the breeze that she was. And she believed her rock-solid mother who had cried in the night behind a closed bedroom door.
She believed her mother every day of her life. She felt like that blessing wind and she glowed like the moon and she fell in love. He said he never wanted to see her again. Heartbroken she was, but she believed her mother still.
And as her mother lay on her deathbed, she couldn't take her eyes off her beautiful breeze-like daughter. She told her she was sorry – for what, she never said. She closed her eyes wearily and never awoke again.And the beautiful shattered breeze went to the terrace of the house she had grown up, played and believed her mother in – she raised her arms to the sky, shut her eyes tight and believed she was the breeze – and jumped! There was an exhilarating rush of wind, her mother's solid heart beating, free float. And she knew her mother had lied.