The Lady in The Pavement

It was nearly midnight. I stood, at the end of the pavement, just watching her.

The night was beautiful. Not a cloud in the sky. The white rabbit moon was smiling in the middle of the pitch black nothingness. Constellations, telling their stories, shone their soft sweet light to the pavement. Withered orange leaves danced gravely to the autumn wind. Casted shadows looked ridiculously enlongated and lengthy due to the kindled lights from street lamps.

The lady smiled. She beckoned me closer. I obliged.

Her face became clearer as I approached. Her skin, once radiant and smooth, now wrinkled and lined of old age. Her white hair glittered in the moonlight. Her eyes, though beared heart-broken memories of her old days, laughed and twinkled as if to say youth hasn't abandoned her entirely. She was beautiful.

When I was close enough, she took me through her memories with her narrating words.

I was beautiful, she began. And I had been a star...Fame and fortune, both the welcomed and unwelcomed, flowed endlessly in on her. There seemed to be no stop. She could still recall, oh, the glory, the sound of applause, the riches and luxuries lavished upon her by men of all regions Nothing she wanted and didn't get, and besides. And there she dwelled in the realms of illusional passions. Blurry days swept pass her without the least of appreciation.

I knew then, the meaning of happiness, she said. And it was jealousy. Pure jealousy, it was that destroyed her. Rumors and idle tales born of vain intentions flew about pulverizing her reputation. She was driven out of her own world. She became nothing, just a broken soul. No money, no glory. Friends, and men, from her old days, looked down at her and smirked and shut the door after the last wisp of their tailored suits- they never knew her. She tried to rid the world of its problem, and rid her of herself. But it turned out the world that ignored her existence also didn't want her dead. Officers snatched her back from the claws of death which she tried to deliver herself to a number of times.

She paused, observing my expressions.

Look, she pointed to the east. Another day is dawning.

And she was right. The warmth of day was chasing away the chills of night at the edge of the sky. It was time for the moon and stars to give way to the sun.

I think you should go, young lad, she said to me.

But I wish to hear more, I objected. You haven't told me the ending.

The lady laughed. Silly boy, she called me. How can I tell you the ending of my memory when I am making them as I go along? The sunrise is a symbol that says last night was a memory too.

I was motionless, though my thoughts were spinning.

Goobye, boy. And she left.

And I never saw her since.