Masquerade

Day Six: A Character-Building Experience Today’s Prompt; Who’s the most interesting person or people you’ve met this year?

Do you prefer an open book or a mystery?

The most interesting person I have met this year is only what I have made her up to be. She prefers to play hide and seek, not only with who she is but with her words. If you read them over and over again, like any good book or movie, you can gather up pebbles she has dropped along the way.

The life she describes behind the screen as a wife, teacher, and friend looks nothing like the words she writes of a life of love she walked away from many miles down the road, and now is nothing but a hologram over her shoulder. She projects words out to her audience like an eagle gliding on an invisible air current.

My eyes fill with water enough to blur my vision, my throat tightens, and my heart goes out to her every time I read her words. I’m left wondering where she’s hiding, who she is, and how or if I should  throw her a life jacket to help her out of the deep rough water she seems to be in.

I’m typically drawn to people with wounds.It’s my nature to pick them up and cradle them in my arms, swaying back and forth or side to side. I wish I could crawl inside the screen to figure out a way to help her go back to the era of which she speaks. However, I don’t want to forfeit the fantasy I have created so, for now, I will take the quilt my grandma stitched depicting the milestones of my life and lay it down where everything is green. A small emerald creek bubbles over the mossy rocks as the animals relish the cooling water. Green saplings delicately line each side of the creek, forming a canopy from the beaming sun. I find a tree to lean against and quietly read her poetry worthy of rustic frame thickly lined with white leaves and the backdrop of the place I described to you.