Town Folks

She crossed the country in hopes her old life wouldn’t tag along. Hoping her memories lost their way, murdered on some nameless dusty, dirt, road. Where loneliness was measured in weight.

Her too-good-to-be-true future was now buried with him. That future made for two was now on the back of a discarded milk carton. Lily lived here long enough to see her first garden bloom with roses in shades of canary yellow & retina burning fuchsia.

Drifting out of dreams, the crisp morning air threatened and sneered alongside the mocking birds’ sing-song calls. As soon as her eyelids lifted and the comfort of a fading dream snapped away its blanket, the blaring record of her trash-fire life slammed into her eardrums all at once. The nightmare of life and all the losses surrendered at sleep, barreled into every muscle. Waking was a boulder to be maneuvered and pushed, to quickly find a reason to put her feet on the floor and to face another day. As the tears filled her eyes, she heard the cream yellow & burning pink roses softly calling out for a fresh sprinkle of water giving her enough strength to put on her Sunday’s best.

The good Christian town folk filed into the velvet red pews to try and figure out why bad things happen to good people and meandered into why Miss Lou-Anne was possibly having an affair with the town’s high school algebra teacher. And why is Becky Lee losing so much weight all of a sudden? The small town church kept the community’s plates overflowing with the latest gossip. The blue haired bags of wrinkles kept their eyes and ears pricked for something more than, “Love thy neighbor.” and “Turn the other cheek.”

A memory of two classmates whispering into each of their ears thumped into Lily’s mind. The two of them with pointed fingers slicing in her direction as their eyes would quickly dart to meet hers. Their smirks bobbed between muffled snickering and wrinkled brows. Lily’s taste for black dresses and nails was enough to turn the rumor mill and so it turned. “It’s her! She’s the Satanist.”

“Some things never change.” as Lily stared down at her chipped, black nails. Lily smiled.