[Click image to play soundtrack.]

HERE I'M SITTING by my desk at school, with a completed exam paper in front of me, but the time isn't up yet. This is my very first day of exams, and it has been rather easy—it's surprising, I haven't studied a single bit for it. Most of the others are literally struggling with the math problems, and all I do is to use my common sense.

I notice that the teacher is watching me with pity in her eyes. I'm sure it's that. Does she have to go on like that? It just makes me feel so irritated, so—miserable. She, and all the others who know me—or rather, know of me—have been going on like this since some weeks back, I don't remember how many any more. But I do know very well why, and that makes me even angrier 'cause whatever they do they keep reminding me, and I'm tired of remembering. I want to forget.

I shake my head, letting my dark blonde hair fall in my face and shut out the classroom and my thoughts return to that fateful day which changed my whole life. I remember the shock I got, as clearly as if it were yesterday; how much I cried and the nightmare that followed. My twin, Miriam, fifteen years old, took it much calmer—yes, she did cry at first, but not half as much as I—and it was she who soothed Bernie and Bea, twins too, six years our junior.

For the time being we're living with the neighbours and we're going to stay there till exams are over and summer holidays start. Then we're going to America where we have an aunt who lives at a ranch and whom we've never met before. I don't long to go there. If I stay here or move there to her place doesn't matter to me at all. It doesn't make any difference. I've lost interest in almost every thing and body since that day when the policewoman came and announced that both our parents died in a terrible car accident.

I feel how the tears suddenly start welling up but I try to keep them back. Don't cry... not now, not here! Why do I have to be so sensitive? A girl of my age shouldn't go around crying all over the place like this. Of course I have a good – bad – reason for it but...

The teacher calls my name, and I peep through the curtain of hair strands. She says that if I have completed the paper I may put it on her desk and leave, and have a breather before the next one. I have, so I do so gratefully, and I feel eyes filled more with curiosity than with sympathy on my back as I open the door and literally flee from them: run out on the empty playfield and up on the hill edging the school grounds. I sit down on a large round boulder and try desperately to get some kind of an order on my face, but it doesn't work. The tears just stream down. At least there's no one watching me, behaving like a kid (well I feel like one). Only He, up there, somewhere.    

 Oh, why... why—?

That single-word question keeps on repeating itself in my mind over and over again. Why did it have to happen to my parents? Why—?

Oh, stop it! I must stop thinking about that, I can't stand it! But it continues: why? Why?

"Oh, shut up!" I burst angrily out aloud to myself.

Aaah—that's better.

I have to put away those thoughts and lock them up in my mental safe and never let them out again, until that day—if it will ever come—when I've no need for them any longer and have nothing to support them with. Only then can I throw them away in the dustbin, or flush them in the toilet, or burn them or something. But first I've got to get out of this cage of mine. The bars have to get weaker, as long as I keep on clawing them; I hope.    

 I sniffle and wipe away the tears with the back of my hand, and combing my long fringe aside, away from my face, I see a bird sailing high up there in the blue. If one could just do like a bird and fly away from all trouble and worries—all that makes life so hard for you. Fly into the land of the Sun which has everything which makes you happy and peaceful. 

Dreams, dreams, dreams, which never come true. That's typical. Maybe some will, when I get away from here, to my aunt's place, that's my Dad's sister, whatever-her-name-is, in I-don't-remember-where, in America. At least I gather that it's a somewhat desolate district where the ranch is and that'll suit me fine, I think and—hope. But then I can't bother myself whether it will or won't, I've had enough to worry about already, so that's that. All I know for sure is that my little brother and sisters and I are going to be there, and that our step-brother Paul is going to see to it that we reach there safely.

It's crawling with students down there on the school compound now, and soon the bell will ring for the next period of exams, the next maths paper and I'll have to go down there and join them. After that, it will be lunch break and I sincerely hope I'll be able to make it among all those strangers. 

Yes, strangers: I came to this school last fall, but I haven't made friends with anybody yet, not even in my own class, although some have tried to make friends with me. I kept myself within my shell, and nobody has been patient or persistent enough to get through it. So I've remained alone. Not that I mind it that much—in fact, I'm quite contented with it. I'm not going to try to make friends with anyone, I leave that to them. If they can't bother: well, too bad. 

If I'm shy? Maybe. In fact, yes. But that's how I am and I can't do anything about it. Even if I could, it's too late to do anything about it now. And yet... there are times when... when I long desperately for someone; someone who really cares...

There goes the bell, and I must leave the peaceful tranquillity of this hill. With one last regretful glance at the bird, I leave the hill behind me; it has never let me down as many others have, instead it has helped me to get over obstacles which I couldn't get over by myself. Mother Nature has always welcomed me with a warmth and tenderness I haven't found in people but always felt that I needed. Nature has embraced me and rocked my upset thoughts to sleep with a lullaby that only exists in the cascading waters of a little river, in the fields and in the high tree tops.    

***

... PART 2 next!

© 1983/2016 by kemorgan65

CREDIT:
*Instrumental track "I miss you" by Danny Rayel https://youtu.be/XRS6sUOPDHE