(Category: headspace)

A mysterious girl once lived here.

The house itself was a simple wooden place, with a chandelier over the dining table, and a staircase in the back leading to an upstairs area. Out to the side of the house was a garden with a few ponds and an angel statue.

Out back was a backyard. A river flowed through it (somehow). On the other side of that river was a big oak tree. Suspended from the oak tree was a tire swing. There sat the mysterious girl. She had a calming, simple, happy air to her.

I found her there and she gave me a flute. It might have been a harmonica, actually. I dropped it down a gutter on my way back home.

I tried to come visit her the next day, but the big funky bugs from the land of the big funky bugs were eating her house. I understood implicitly that this meant she had left this world and I would never see her again, and it was all because I'd dropped that keepsake.

I don't know who she was. Maybe one of us.

Or maybe she symbolized any of my childhood friends. I didn't stay friends with any of them. Some of those friendships ended in ways I regret, and deeply. I know I was a child too and didn't know what I was doing, and can't really be held accountable now for what I did then, but even still, it really, really stings to know I failed to make sure the cycle of violence would die with me.