Epilogue
Falling feathers
Cold and wet and white.
No, not feathers.
Why would they be feathers ?
She partially opens her swollen eyes to a bleak sky and hundreds of flakes of snow falling down on on her face. They land in tiny pools of cold water on her face. She is bone tired, light headed and weak, she can hardly keep her lids open. So she closes them.
The noises fade into the background of her mind; voices and screams, machines and something unfamiliar.
They all eventually lull her to sleep.
She is a sad sight, a young girl, in a dirty white coat, sleeping on a bench in the freezing cold. A young couple sits in the bench next to hers, a man with headphones in stays for a few seconds sitting next to her and even an off duty security guard ignores the girl and walks by her.
She is not noticed until a student from the arts conservatory sees her still sleeping in the same position as it approaches midnight hour. He calls the police as he runs down the stairs to catch the last train of the night.
The officer on the scene is just out of the academy, a petite woman who is hoping this isn't the beginning of a homicide case. The officer approaches the girl and shines the flashlight into her eyes.
“Hey, wake up,” the officer says.
Thankfully, the girl is still alive. She stirs and stares up at the blinding light in her face. As the officer lowers the light, she reaches her hand out to the girl and pulls her up.
The policewoman takes in the girl's appearance in the lamplight. Boyish-ly short black hair, a clean rosy complexion, long lashes, dark eyes and a dainty upturned nose. She would be beautiful, the officer thinks-- if not for the large port wine stain across her cheek that seemed to dribble down her neck and even spotted her hands.
“Who are you ? Where are your parent’s ?”
Her black eyes look everywhere, but at the officer. Taking in every inch of the cold night.
“Hey--,”
“I’m so cold," she says, holding hands over her heart.
---
"The vast distances between the stars is nothing compared to the infinite distances between human hearts."
- Albert Einstein