PART II - She was a girl
Anyway, where was I? Yes, The End. That is where I come in, but it's often a bad place to start telling a story. Or so I've been told.
So let’s go back to the very first memory that flashed white at The End of her life. She was six. It was a hot winter day; so hot that the heat waves danced in front of her, the shed doing little to shield her warm brown skin from being scorched. She can’t remember why now, she was waiting alone outside the back entrance of her tiny school, in a uniform that — she does remember — she hated so much. Her eyes barely opened to welcome the tiny bit of light it could, before she looked down again at her own feet. She was wearing shoes that she tried so hard to outlive, the one with the flower and bow and the Velcro straps; they were far too big for her. ‘You’ll grow into them’ her Ma said to her much too often. She remembers the day she had to give those up, too.
The next time her eyes mustered up enough energy to look up, she saw her Da waving at her. It didn’t matter so much why she was there anymore, she doesn’t remember a time she wasn’t happy to see him. She looks down again at her feet, shuffling to move the shoes she tried so hard to fill, only to be frozen in place. It seemed like the entire Earth was covered in a mesh of white — the floor of white she later learns was thistle or milkweed seeds — and Da was on the other side, the safe side — and she was not. She felt the tears piling up behind her eyes as she looked up to him again and said ‘I can’t’. His face brightens with the smile of an encouraging parent who thinks their child is their whole world, and holds out his arms. No matter what she thought, the thought of touching the seeds terrified her, and as she stood there deciding that she can never cross that path, she felt arms come around her. She looks up now, and her eyes no longer squint as she stares up to her Da, whose blue cap he never left the house without was giving her more shelter than anything else ever would. She was a girl. She was always his girl.
The memory flutters shut with a swirl of yellow, green and pink — most people don’t realise how common synesthesia is at The End. Yellow for joy, green because it’s the random colour her Ma and Da picked when she asked them for their favourite one, and pink for all the times she’s felt heartache for them.
There aren’t many who do what I do. In fact, I couldn’t even tell you how I came to be who I am. I can’t complain about this job in moments like these; where people are sent off The End not remembering a single thing about who they used to be and who they used to love, but I am here to recount their stories for them. Though it’s not really a job in the mundane sense, nor am I a volunteer. Like I said, there’s no word really for what I do.
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