Rippled Reflections

I looked down, and in the water below I saw my life reflected in a series of images. It was like I was walking in a hall of mirrors. Reflections of myself were looking back at me from certain points in my life.

The first was my earliest memory. I couldn’t have been any more than three at the time. Mum was chasing me around the house, with a towel in one hand and a bar of soap in the other. I can remember giggling gleefully as I ran, annoying my mother more and more with each second that passed. I’d been playing outside, finger painting but had decided to use myself as the canvas instead and so I covered myself from head to toe in paint.

The second was of my first pet. A tiny little Italian grey hound. I’d been about 6, and at the time, had had just as much energy as the tiny, hypo energetic little dog. We had been chasing each other around the yard, but even though we were both had around the same level of energy, her four legs, even though they were tiny, beat my two. I simply couldn’t catch her.

Next. I was around twelve and rebellion was just beginning to set in. Mum and I were in the kitchen, screaming at one another across the counter. I’d been giving her attitude because she wouldn’t let me go to a party that weekend. At the time, it had been everything I’d cared about. One of the popular girls, yes, the popular girls was holding a pool party for her birthday and I’d been desperate to go because, maybe, just maybe, I’d have a chance at breaking in to the popular group. At the time, all I wanted was to be one of them.

After that was a memory from when I was around fourteen or fifteen. Many of my peers had recently been testing the boundaries, with things like drugs, drinking. Someone, I faintly recalled had even stolen at least two hundred dollars worth of makeup from Coles. Nasty rumours were flying around everywhere. It was a confusing time. The cruel nature of my peers combined with the hormones we all had raging through us, looking back, it had been, quite simply, hell. I was crying on my bed. The people who’d been my friends the day before had hated me that day. I can still remember screaming at my mother when she came in to console me. She wouldn’t understand. Get lost. Leave me alone.

The last reflection was from something that had happened earlier that year. It was just an ordinary day. I’d been with friends. I’d had a lot of them at the time. It was another long, dreary school day, but the parts that were spent with them seemed to last only five minutes. It was a break and we were just sitting together. It was one of my favourite memories. One of the happiest times I could ever remember.

As I closed my eyes, the reflected image memories all shattered like broken shards of a mirror. All the emotions went away and I felt nothing but the cold wind rushing past me as I fell. It felt like I’d hit glass as I hit the water and then nothing. All there was, was black.

Quidam

Quidam. It could be anyone. The person in front of you on the bus, a classmate you haven't gotten to know yet, the new nervous co worker who only started last week, a person you brush past on a walk. Quidam is a stranger who could be anyone you don't know. Quidam is new and mysterious. Just like any stranger or new person.

Just like any stranger, Quidam brings endless possibilities. The opportunity for a fresh start or a new friend. Quidam is a person who evokes mystery, and like many new things, wonder in young children. They may be a person who others a wary around out of fear of the unknown.

Quidam may be the person you cross the street behind, the kind stranger who stops to help you pick up the belongings you've dropped or the neighbourly person who greets you as you walk by. It could be anyone. So who is it?

Quidam is a nameless passerby, a solitary figure lingering on a street corner, a person rushing past, a person who lives lost amidst the crowd in all to anonymous society.

Fish Out Of Water

 

People stopped and stared when they saw her. It only made her feel worse. Up until now, she'd been on her own most of the time. It seemed like she was the only thing people could see. Like they were blinded to everything else. As if she wasn't insecure enough as it was, people stared at her, continuing to stare until she was out of their sight.

At the time, it had seemed a brilliant idea to Sirena. She had been getting rather tired of cooped at home. She had been there so long, stuck in the one place that it had become incredibly boring. Minutes had started to feel like hours and days like weeks.

So, she had decided it was time for a change, which to her seemed long overdue. Besides, she was nearing 18, and wasn't that around the age where children started to move away from home and branch out? Having never really known her parents, she wasn't real sure but she guessed that that was what generally happened.

The city differed greatly from what she was used to back home. For one thing, this particular city was a lot drier than she was used to and there was certainly a considerable amount of sunsgine, unlike her hometown which had been quite dark with not a lot of colour. Whereas, this city was full of colour.

So, as she walked down the city's main street, people stared. But, Sirena realised, they had reason to. When you were walking on a tail in place of legs, a little staring and attention was to be expected. Right?

Colours

 

Nature and the environment are most often what first comes to mind when the word green is first mentioned. Trees, leaves, grass and the vegetables your parents made you eat as a child but you hated are all green. It can symbolise money and mean life, well being, good luck and jealousy as well as a signal to tell us 'go'.

Anger, rage and a signal 'stop' can all be the colour red. Red can mean danger, and sometimes joy and prosperity. It can be a flashing light accompanied by a siren warning you to move quickly out of the way while the emergency vehicle rushes past. Red is passion and intensity. It can be a fire fueled desire and can mean extreme heat.

Happines, optisim, clarity and wisdom are all the colour yellow. It's the blinding colour of the sun, a bright banana or a pretty daffodil flower. Yellow is the colour of walls in the nursery of a baby whose gender isn't yet known and the colour of a squeaky rubber duck waiting to play at bathtime. Lemons and falling autumn leaves are all yellow.

The sky, the seas, calm, peace, cold, tranquility and sadness can all be blue. The colour of jeans, butterflies and things for newborn baby boys, blue can be confidence, harmony, unity, cleanliness, loyalty and even an appetite suppressant. Sometimes, blue can appear to be the colour of the moon and can have a naturally, soothing, calming effect.

Most often a quite depressing colour, black can be grief, fear, elegance, wealth, evil, anonymity and sometimes death. Black is the colour of night and darkness, of negativity, bad experiences, fear and threat. It can be a leather jacket, electrical wires or remote controls. Black can bring with it grief and remorse, mystery and evil, or even possibility.

Purple is often associated with royalty and nobilty. It can be the colour of power, enlightenment, peace, magic and purpose. Purple is the colour of pretty flowers and the sky at sunset. It can sometimes appear to be the colour of the flash of lightning in a stormy sky and a jacaranda tree.

Purity, innocence, humility and precision can all be the colour white. White can be truth and openess, clarity and cleanliness. White is the colour of cold winters and snow, potatoes, ice cream and milk. White is said to be able to promote new begininnings and development.

Pink is the colour of romance, love, tenderness and acceptance Pink can mean fullness, achievment and neautrilisation of negative behaviours, feelings or emotions. Pink is the colour of flowers, pigs and things for newborn baby girls.  Magnolia trees, contentment, fairy floss and quiet are all things pink.

Isobel

When Kristen walked into her little girl's room that morning she wasn't expecting to find what she did. "Isobel, the sun's up sweet heart, so should you be." She called as she came in. Kristen drew the light purple, butterfly decorated curtains on the far well before turning around.

She gasped. Her daughter's bed was empty. There was no sign of the bubbly, beautiful little eight year old she'd tucked in and kissed goodnight the night before. Her heart was racing as she processed what she was seeing and the world seemed to be years away as she searched her house and outside, calling desperately for sweet little Isobel.

Kristen didn't wait long before coming to the horrible conclusion that Isobel was really gone. Panicked, she made her way to the phone to call triple zero. "Police." She said. The next minute or so seemed like the longest minute of her life as she waited for someone to answer her call.

When she heard a voice on the other end, she spilled her story. "It's my daughter. She's gone. I put her to bed last night and went to get her up this morning and she wasn't there!" "You're daughter's missing madam?" "Yes." Kristen said, slowing down. "Ok. I'll send someone out to you, but please stay on the line with me." The person taking her call was calm and patient, a hint of soothing in her voice. "Now, what's your daughter's name? Can you describe her for me?" "Her name's Isobel and she's only eight! She can't be out there all by herself!" Kristen was becoming overwhelmed as the emotion spilled out. "Can you think of anywhere she might have gone?" "No. Nowhere. She's never left home before. Never run away. She's always clinging to me usually. This isn't like her. Not one bit."

The police arrived then and took a picture from Kristen. One of the three officers that had been sent out stayed with her while the others went out looking for Isobel. The hours passed in what seemed like slow motion. If she wasn't pacing around the house, Kristen was staring out the window or waiting by the phone or the door like someone would call or knock at any moment. It was the most stressful, agonizing time of her time.

Aside from school and work, Kristen had hardly been away from her daughter at all. Never once had she strayed or run away. Like she'd told the police officers, this wasn't anything like her daughter. It was very unusual. Isobel was normally so attached to Kristen. Always wanting to hold her hand, and if she wasn't she was never far away. She was always in sight.

At long last, there was a knock at the door. The two police officers had returned with Isobel. Kristen hugged her daughter tight. "Don't you ever do that to me again Isobel. You hear me?" "Yes Mummy. I'm sorry." Isobel was shaking in her mother's arms as she buried herself deeper and deeper into her Mum. "We found her in a park not far from here Ma'am. At the big tree near the playground."

"Where did you go?" Kristen asked curiously, studying her daughter. Just as interested as Kristen was to hear the story, the two officers came inside to hear of Isobel's adventure. "I went looking Mummy." Isobel said simply. "Looking? What for?" Kristen knelt in front of Isobel, her face full of concern. "For Grandma Isobel." Kristen's mother, also Isobel, had died not too long ago, but before she'd passed, she'd had dementia and had often got lost on her walks. "When you said she'd gone, I thought she'd got lost again, so I went looking for her. I thought I could bring her home." Kristen smiled. "Oh no Sweetie. Grandma Isobel hasn't gone for one of her walks. She's gone away, and she's up in heaven now." "Oh." Isobel said. "So she's not lost?" "No Isobel, she's not lost. Not anymore, and thankfully, neither are you."