watch it all fall out [ophelia]

Walking is a good pass time when one is in a bad or worried mood. Not only does it give one a chance to stretch out their stiff legs after a good, long sit, it’s also a fantastic time to take advantage of the knowledge that walking provides. Ophelia had always loved to use walks as a secondary place of focus (besides her empty notebooks), and today of all days was one where she really needed the chance to get out and away from the academy and let her mind wander. Her mother’s birthday was coming up much too quickly for her liking, a day that always sat at the back of her mind, waiting to strike doubt into her soft, vulnerable heart. She had an annual sort of tradition that she and her father had practiced to give her proper mourning; however, this year, her father was weathering the event alone because of her recent departure from Colorado to… Well, school.

It made her worry that her poor father was home without her when they had spent her whole life as a unit. She always tried to boost her dad up a little bit, even through all the bounced checks at the grocery store and the times that he felt so sad he couldn’t will himself to move. Days like these were the ones where she took the opportunity to stay home, fix her father breakfast in bed, and watch nothing but daytime television until he decided he was well enough to take a shower and get out of the house. Sometimes, when that wasn’t an option, she just stayed because she knew he was better off with her than alone with Judge Judy. Depression was truly a crippling thing, and she hoped beyond hope that she hadn’t inherited the trait.

Today was a day that she needed to get out and refresh her mind with the instant cure that was nature. Staying cooped up in the dorms was lonely and dusty, not to mention the fact that when there were people there, it was so loud and obnoxious that she couldn’t keep her attention on a book long enough to finish a single page. So, in an effort to clear a path for herself and decide on how to go about ‘celebrating’ her mother’s birthday, she dressed in a high waisted skirt, a clean white top, ballet flats, and took herself outside to walk to the park in town. She did enjoy the park for what it was, which would be enormous as well as clean cut and obviously well loved. So well loved, in fact, that the paint had already started to peel back from the monkey bar grips.

Ophelia walked into the park without suspecting anything in particular, headphones plugged into her ears and on full blast, hands stuffed into the pockets sewn into her skirt. She was surprised as she spotted a familiar face upon the swing set, a fellow wind student that she recognized from the dorms and from the hallways in passing. She didn’t know him particularly well, had maybe said hello once when she started attending at the beginning of the year, and didn’t feel inclined to speak with him—except for the fact that he usually seemed so happy, or at least slightly more enthusiastic than he was now, which was absolute zero on a scale of one to ten. It seemed to her that men all wore the same face when they were sad, which was a lot like a cross between the classic puppy dog face and pure disappointment, something she recognized easily from dealing with an incredibly mopey dad. The older student seemed to have a genuine look of confuddlement upon his features, which was more or less emphasized by the fact that he was swaying back and forth in the swings, reminding her of how lonely the playground was when she was a child.

Considering the fact that she was free for the day to do whatever she wished, Ophelia decided to forget about her father and her mother for a little while and make a new acquaintance instead. She removed her ear buds and wound them around her iPod as she walked nonchalantly toward the play area, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible as she took a seat at the swing next to the older boy. She wasn’t exactly successful in her attempt to be inconspicuous, but she managed not to fall off the swing, so that was a start. She used one foot to push gently backward as she looked over at the other student, giving a friendly smile and a quiet “Hello”, hoping she wasn’t invading his space. She wasn’t always so good at reading when people wanted to be alone.

“I’m pretty sure I know you from school… I’m Ophelia. Please don’t hesitate to kick me off the swing set if I’m interrupting some deep, philosophical thoughts.”

She held out her hand the way she always did to offer a hand shake with her introduction, figuring that a joke wouldn’t hurt to break the ice.