The Girl

The sun streams through the thick, dense canopy of leaves, the fragile offspring of magnificent, statuesque works of ancient beauty, and creates a kaleidoscope of uneven, geometric figures of light on the smooth pavement. The lane between the two park greens is illuminated, heavenly almost, and it is the perfect day: the sky is a clear, unblemished pastel blue, streaked by thin, whimsical trails of white cloud.
Protected under the cradle of a mother of green, is a bench, next to which stand two elegant, old-fashioned lampposts. On this bench, sits a girl.
She has her long, brown hair tied loosely in a messy braid, draped carelessly over her shoulder, the tints in her mane playing a game of light and colour as if it were the most normal thing in the world. Her small, straight nose is lightly sprinkled with freckles; her cherubic lips are a pale, affectionate pink, inviting, pursed in silent concentration.
Open on her lap is a book, perhaps the source of her ardent focus. Her dress, a black muslin simple piece, is lightly crumpled under the weight of the hardcover, yet she seems oblivious of this element, or of the fact that the material is showing a more than ignorable portion of the smooth skin of her thigh. Every now and again, she pushes a loose strand from her eyes, behind an observant ear.
I stare, as I am intrigued. She is a spectre of utter mystery, of ease: although she is merely sitting, she emanates grace, a quiet confidence born perhaps out of the book sitting inconspicuously in her lap.
She feels my gaze, and hesitates before lifting up her head. Hey eyes are a piercing, profound blue, tinged with soft gray and deepened by a dark, enigmatic blue, coated by a thick set of thick, long eyelashes. The corner of her lips raise into a secretive smile, and the intensity of her look create a strange impression of longing deep in my body, a longing for her to beckon me to sit with her.
She winks, and she disappears, as well as the park and the perfect day, to be replaced by a hospital room… An area I know unfortunately too well. A woman, who knows she loves me, even though she doesn’t always remember it, stares at me with large blue eyes, framed by thick, dark lashes: her face has matured, wrinkles spread across her face like an intricate map.
The girl is still there, I know it. Her eyes tell me so.