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Discarded
The first hints of morning sunlight peeked across the horizon, pale blue bleeding into baby pink. The air was cool, frigid for mid-July. An unseasonal frost settled across emerald blades, a hidden danger on the dark tarmac.
The grey stone pathway was in a similar state. Not one footprint disturbed the grounds leaning up to the large red brick library. Not a single car was parked nearby.
If one were to observe mere hours before-before the winds had changed, before warmth and sunlight had given way to dark, heavy clouds, they would have seen it. A young woman, skittish and slight. Eyes, wide with fear. She crouched down low beside the building, clutching her burden to her chest. A rowdy group of drunken teens passed her, no more than a hundred or so yards away.
With pale, trembling hands, she placed the bag on the uppermost step. Black, stiletto-healed shoes clicked clinically on stone. The leather, wrinkled and worn from use, battered and faded-once black. A small, smiling frog bag charm twitched as she set it down with none of the love nor care it sought, none of the love or care that it deserved. That should have been its right.
Relief showed in soft, grey eyes. The eyes of a child far too young to know what she was doing. Eyes that were too young to have known what she had done all those months ago, far too young still to understand what she was now doing. She could only think of herself. What everyone would think, would whisper, would say-behind her back, to her face-to her parents. All for the sake of one little, insignificant black bag.
The bag did not stir once through the night. A thin layer of frost crept across the weathered surface, filling in the cracks, seeping through the worn lining. It remained both unmoving and unmoved through the dawning of the next day, and the next. It was not until almost four days after its abandonment, that a soul stumbled across it.
Wire framed glasses slipping down his nose, the young librarian sighed. His forehead creased, lips pursed. Students. Not only did they fail to keep the inside of his library in the state that they found it, always leaving assignments, mobiles, keys, and any number of other personal affects behind, now unable to even remember to take their bags home over the bank holiday. Arms full of folders and papers, he freed one hand to pick up the nuisance. They would remember it sooner or later, they always did, whether it was an irate lecturer reminding them of a missing essay, or the dire need for their debit card before a night out on the town.
Papers slipped, fluttering down the steps, folders clattering in their wake. Pale fingers twitched weakly. The small, dripping frog charm, heavy from a weekend of frost and rain, twitched, happy at being found, at being acknowledged. Calloused fingers scrabbled with the fraying strap, rushing to push it back in place, hoping, praying that it would be enough, that it would undo it all. That it would not be there. Wouldn’t be his responsibility. Wouldn’t be his problem.
The leather bag-so small, so insignificant. It’s content, finally revealed, open for all to see. It’s precious cargo there for the taking, there for the first worthy of viewing its’ secrets. Late. Too many days too late.
So tiny. So fragile. Once baby-pink, new, fresh, delicate; now blue, cold, purpling-grey. Impossibly tiny eyelashes, heavy with glistening crystals, did not twitch or flutter. Small, cherubim lips remained closed. Beautiful, perfectly formed fingers, unmoving, would be forever frozen. No-one had cared enough to listen to her cries.
The sounds of retching echoed across campus. Forgotten papers crunched under foot as more came, curious, prying. Looking for an escape from the mundane, for entertainment, however temporary, however brief. He turned his head away from her perfect, tiny, still form.
All for nothing. A waste. Tears would fall for her. Just for her. For one bright light, snuffed out before her time. For one, amongst countless others left; abandoned. How many more would go undiscovered, un-mourned – hidden in back alleys, in dustbins, in skips, abandoned buildings, on rarely used pathways and country lanes. Tears would fall for her, but none from the one woman-the one child, who mattered.