Change

It was 7.30h in the evening. She was at the public library as usual. It had became her private rite since she had leanrt how to read. Her mouth formed an ironic smile as she read the title of the book she had just picked up from the coffee coloured carpet on the floor. «Change». She thought that it could be a good title for the story of her life. Too bad someone had thought of it before her.

Throwing the book onto the empty table beside her, she went home.
Later that night she woke up after a very realistic dream. It was as if she was sitting in this big, dark, poorly ventilated cinema looking at a blank screen. From time to time, the screen came alive with thousands of images, and suddenly, as fast as they had appeared, they would vanish again. The strangest thing about that was that all the images looked familiar to her, like she was seeing one of her favourite films, the ones she watches over and over again, but at the same time she felt that she was seeing herself, but a different self. She recognized the person and the situations, but it was like reading someone's journal.

She went to the kitchen to gran some Cheerios and a diet coke. Back in the living room, she sat down on the sofa with a blanket around her shoulders. The sweet prickling taste of the coke calmed her down. But for some reason, she couldn't stop thinking about the book. The «Change» book. She had a feeling telling her that it was connected to her dream. That restless feeling was returning to her. It was like a worm cralling up her spine. Her stomach felt full of a million tiny spiders trying to find their way out and all she could do was to try to drown them with the diet coke.

The next morning she got up pretty late, as she had only fallen asleep after 5 o'clock. Having already missed the most important lesson of the day she decided to have a walk in the park. She had been walking for three hours when she felt really tired and the heat was almost unbearable. She set down on a bench surrounded by fern and fuchsias. After a few seconds she fell asleep.

She was in the cinema again. Sitting in the front row. The film hadn't begun yet. She was the only person in the room, but she could hear voices coming to her through the open side door. She couldn't understand what they were saying, but she recognized the voices, she just couldn't say to whom they belonged.

She stood up and walked towards the door. With each step she could hear more and more of the sounds she was following. Finally she could understand them.

She was in a room that reminded her of her childhood bedroom. The walls were blue, there was a window with a white curtain, a wooden bed and lots of toys. There were four children. The tallest, a skinny blond girl with light brown eyes was clearly the leader. Then there was this fat boy, with a pleasant smile and red cheeks holding this cute litle brunnett girl with big dark eyes wuth an amazing shine and finally there was a blond girl, she was the middle one in terms of hight. She was very energetic, a huge grin dancing on her face with every step she took. She seemed to be invisible to all the four children, and didn't know who they were. All she knew was that she felt like she belonged there.

Suddenly all the kids ran through another door in the opposite wall. She felt the urge to be with them and so she followed the children.

In the next room there were only the two blond girls. They were older. The skinny one was watching TV and the energetic one was really quiet. She was reading a book and on the floor, beside her were three more books.

She finished the one she was holding, picked the others up and walked through another door.

When she followed the blond girl with the book through the next door she gasped. She was in her living room. The girl was on the sofa, her back to the door, a diet coke on the table beside her.

She walked to the front of the sofa and looked at the girl's face. Her huge grin had faded away, she was even quieter than she was in the previous room and the feeling of loneliness was all over the room.

Suddenly, she realized what she was seeing, she had been watching her own life from an outsider's prespective. For once in her life she had walked out of her shoes and analysed the situation. She realized how much life had change. How much she had changed. She finally knew what she'd been looking for, even if it had been with her all the time.

She woke up. The flowers around her made her remember when she had played with her cousins and sister, pretending the flowers were earings. She missed them so much.

She got up and picked up eight flowers. Then she headed home. Not the house where she lived right now. But the house where she'd been happy.