“Why do you think all those stories and movies have sad endings?”

“Which ones do you mean?”

“You know which ones I mean, Michael.”

The sky had taken on a depressing hue as she had said that. The clouds had rolled in with the breeze that had been sifting through the grass and her hair when we had walked over to the park. The same breeze was sifting her skirt now, causing her hair to wave through the air like a white flag with the setting sun shining on it: golden, and too bright to look at for long. She was standing at the lake’s edge, her white hands quivering and waving as she combed her fingers through her hair. Her back was to me, but I could imagine her expression: thoughtful and dark, with that look in her eyes when she was asking a question she knew I didn’t like. She was right: I wasn’t in the mood for her silly questions.

“I dunno,” I responded, sighing and scratching my head. I was sick of her attitude, the way she slowly and deliberately led me into answering her questions, where she could pounce on my response and point out the flaws, like a wounded animal -- or a teenager -- coming home to its mother after getting into a fight. And then she’d smile and pretend that she was joking, that the question hadn’t meant anything anyway. “I guess that we like to see different people suffer now and then. A dark element to our mentality, or something.” I pulled out a blade of grass next to me and entwined it between my fingers, before splitting it open with my nail. I looked up at her still figure, her back still to me, hands clasped together behind her back. “But I guess you have a different opinion, Ariana?”

“Hm,” she affirmed, with a little laugh. The clouds had cleared up as quickly as they had come, and she looked up at the sky, maybe gathering up her words to give her opinion as kindly as she could. The nicest way to contradict me.

“Let me guess,” I went on, and I could feel a sarcastic smirk creep up my face. “You think that it’s because none of the writers and directors had happy childhoods, and we all need to spread happiness and love to everyone in the world, in order to have a peaceful and happy ending to all of our lives?”

She really laughed this time, turning her head slightly to her left, her green eyes crinkling up with some strange emotion I didn’t really care to decipher. Then she sighed, but she didn‘t seem sad; just… tired. “No, that’s not what I think this time... Not really.” I didn’t believe it; she must have something similar to what I had guessed in mind. So I remained silent.

“I think it’s because they’re all angry that those Disney movies didn’t come true.” I laughed, and she turned and faced me, her eyes intense. “No, really. I think they’re just bitter about a promise that was made to them, a promise that we’d all have happy endings. We’d all end up fine and happy and singing “It’s A Small World After All” somewhere at the end of the line before we all die. And because it didn’t happen, something didn’t go right, they became bitter. And they took it out through creative means.” She placed her feet on the black rocks surrounding the water’s edge, spreading her arms out to keep balance, like a bird preparing to take a flight to freedom. She walked along a few rocks, studying the ground, before stopping and facing me to continue. “They decided to create something to slam down all those lies that were fed to us, those bittersweet romantic stories. They wanted to end the lies that gave them hope for a future they didn’t get.”

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” I snapped at her. I sat up, placing my back against the tree that had been shading me, wondering why I bothered with this girl anymore. I didn‘t like to question my entertainment this much. “They, the composers, creators, artists, create things because of the urge they have inside them, because they want to create something; pure creativity, true artistry prompts tragedies like those stories we heard and movies we saw.”

“Hmm,” she said, her eyes studying the water, looking distant and dark, her eyes like a rained-out meadow.

I sighed and closed my eyes. “It’s also for the money, and the fame,” I said, opening my eyes to study her face, how her sweet, naïve soul would swallow that one. “I’m sure nobody really cares anymore about actually creating something, but more of what profit they can get from selling pieces of their souls."

She raised her eyes, her emerald, sweet eyes at me to study my face, but she wasn’t really looking at me; she wasn’t really there.

“I suppose,” she said.