Mary MacDonald walks home from work. She works as a barista at a local coffee house and bookstore, although she thinks she might quit. The smell of the used books and fresh brewed coffee bothers her. Perhaps it always has, but she can’t remember why. There’s a lot of things that make her feel like that. The feeling occurs so often she has begun to assume everyone feels it. Almost like an off version of Deja Vú.
It always happens at the most inconvenient of times. For example, after she saw Queen in concert. On her way back to her flat Mary suddenly felt very sad. Maybe it was that she wasn’t there in that moment anymore she thought, but in the back of her mind a voice was screaming at her that it was for the people who won’t ever get to see something so great. It was dramatic she knew that but it made her cry. Her thoughts do that sometimes, make her sad suddenly. Like when she looks too close at the moon and the constellations next to it. Or when she thinks of how the sun will never get to see how beautiful the stars are again. What is she even talking about? The sun never saw them in the first place. At least as far as she can recall.
Her friends sometimes think she’s crazy. Actually, Mary isn’t quite sure if she can call them friends. Friends don’t judge you when you share your thoughts or tell people you might be crazy. There’s nothing wrong with me. Mary insists despite the fact she’s not so sure anymore. Sometimes she thinks she could be crazy.
Mary thought she might be crazy when she saw a redheaded girl walking around one day. She looked young and had a baby stroller she was pushing. The girl had sun-kissed skin and freckles galore. Mary was so sure she knew her. So certain she cried. Cried over what? There was nothing for her to cry over. Except for the vague memory of wavy red hair and a bright smile that came to Mary’s thoughts. A bright smile Mary knew she had never seen before and would never see again. So why did she feel she knew it so well?
Mary knew many things well, but also didn’t. Once, she saw a blonde with a guitar, and was reminded of a girl. She laughed and saw beautiful blue eyes gazing into someone else’s brown ones. This one didn’t make her as sad. This image was happy. It was hard not to be happy. Something about the girls in her mind made it impossible to be sad. So many of her flashes of truth were joyous. Like the bags of weed sitting on night stands, and the tarot cards a pale girl with paler hair read.
Though there were some good glimpses of lives she didn’t want to know anymore, they were always outweighed by the bad. Like the sound of a baby crying and loud splashing of water. The feeling of mistrust and betrayal. The shrieks of girls and crying of boys. The inescapable loneliness of a bay in a knit sweater who is no longer a boy. The tears of the betrayed as they peer upon an obstructed view of the warm, joyful, sun; glittering stars; and his beautiful moon. The life of the girl who can’t let herself remember.
Mary MacDonald walks home from work. She allows herself to think about her feelings for the first time in a while. On her street, she does a double take at a man asleep on the sidewalk, covered in scars, and wearing a worn out sweater. She stops allowing herself to think, because despite not truly knowing she knows it’s for the best she keep walking.