Sweet Passenger
There’s this girl who lives in the corner of people’s eyes.
No, not literally. How could a living, breathing creature ever fit in those narrow slits of skin? They barely hold our eyeballs in there, now imagine how much more muscle and organ you’d have to fit.
She’s more of the type to travel in between blinks. One second laying down, legs spread across an entire row of lecture hall seats. The next she’s doodling all over the chalkboards (most of the chalk did not end up on the board). Smothered across her face and pants is a shade of sky blue. Another blink and it bleeds into the world where she doesn’t belong.
A regular at the train station, despite not having any destination. She saw men in suits, women too. Students, teachers, just people of all sorts. Her heart was filled to the very brim with fascination and love for these beings, even if the two will never exchange a single glimpse. The girl mimicked them, dressing as a self-proclaimed office woman (actual working women were not dumb enough to wear four-inch heels during flurries), hoping there’d be one person that would spare a single glance.
The girl still continues to linger in the subconscious memory, tip-toeing on ladders to fidget with dusty lights. Beams begin to blend like watercolor, accumulating as puddles of light. Unclaimed memories resurface and her body begins to sink. Locked away behind shutters and lenses is an ocean of emotions preserving these souvenirs of time.
Thus the girl began to wonder: Were they really forgotten or were they meant to be left behind?
Will she, too, be forgotten with time?
Wanderers are essentially the nomads of modern time. Scavenging the scorched, dying planet for a place called home. Phenomenons in an era of efficiency, chasing a dream their very existence contradicts. Alas, they take a few more breaths before dissolving into blurry colors. With no anchor to reality, travelers of the background eventually fade into their very own domain.
So the girl thought.
Until a familiar and comforting gaze intercepted, who proceeded to tug on her hand. They sprinted through vacant classrooms, dark mazes, and forgotten studios. It all felt like a fever dream until the two were awakened by the sparkling sea of a thousand city lights.
She was no longer traveling between distant stares, for her existence was already tangible in the reflection of her best friend’s eyes. She wasn’t lost, but simply strolling the outskirts of their beloved city.
For she had, long ago, already found a place to call home.
