Jane Flowers

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Jane. Just Jane.

That is all that I am. All that I will ever be. Someone somewhere in the crowd, the person that no one ever notices, and is just there to take up space. If any space at all.

I am short. I am thin. I have straight brown hair and bright green eyes. I am like the little baby tree, with just two green leaves, never growing. And I surrounded by much taller trees, more majestic and more beautiful than I. My shadow is washed out by the shade that they give, and so I am never noticed. I have been bumped into and stepped on quite often.

No one knows me. No one wants to know me. I am just the little girl who doesn’t give answers in class when called on, sits alone at lunch, leans against the wall watching everyone play jump rope and basketball and four square at recess. The girl who wears the same five dresses, in the exact same order, every week. The dresses with the flowers.

The blue daises for Monday.

The red roses for Tuesday.

The yellow daffodils for Wednesday.

The purple lilacs for Thursday.

The orange tulips for Friday.

Some call me the Wallflower. Others say that is mean. But it isn’t. I lean against the wall at recess and I wear dresses with flowers on them.

I am the girl who gets straight As because my teachers tell me to. I am the girl who always gets, “Speak up in class!” on her report card. I am the girl who knows how to cook a full meal. I am the girl who can do her own laundry. I am the girl who has no mommy or daddy.

Mrs. Garret lets me stay in my mommy and daddy’s old flat. She has pity for the little girl whose parents went away in the car and never came back. She signs school stuff. She lets me pick out stuff from her fridge. But I never see her. She is always working at the big skyscraper downtown.

Sometimes I’ll go into her room after getting food and go out onto her balcony. And I’ll lean against the sliding door and watch the same clouds like I did at recess. And I will decide what each one looks like. A fish. A wagon. A car. A face.

I remember my mommy telling me when I was very little that there is a man up there in sky, watching everybody. Telling me that his name was God. And that all of the dead people live up there. In a place called Heaven. And I have always looked up. But no matter how hard I try and no matter how hard I look I can never see him. And I can never see Mommy and Daddy. Mommy told me that he will talk to me, guide me, tell me what to do. But no matter hard I listen or how quiet it is I can never hear him. Only the wind or a car horn or a dog barking or a basketball bouncing. Mommy lied, Mommy lied, my mind tells me. But Mommy wouldn’t lie to me. She wouldn’t, would she?

My teacher, Miss Connor, tells me to try talking to people. But I just look at her. She then tells me I have very pretty eyes. For the sixteenth time that day.

I don’t love anyone. I always hear who likes who and who likes who back and who wants to go out with who. I could easily name who likes who and who likes who back and who wants to go out with who. Because when I am quiet and I am listening I hear a lot of things. Sometimes I wonder if I told people what I knew if I would be like the girls that everyone knows and everyone pays attention to. But then I wouldn’t be able to listen anymore. I would get glares of hatred, me telling everyone stuff that wasn’t supposed to be told, instead of looks of weirdness when I am quiet and don’t say anything.

Some people try to talk to me. Hello Jane. How are you, Jane? What’s your favorite movie, Jane? What’s your favorite color, Jane? Jane, what’s your favorite dress that you wear? Jane. Jane. Jane.

I listen to their questions. My mind answers them. I listen more. I let no words come out.

Then people call me the Mute. They think I am weird. They think I am unhealthy. They think I should be in a mental ward.

Maybe I should be there. If it is quiet then that is all that matters.

Sometimes when I get home I will go to the park. I will go beyond where the other kids play on the playground and go into the forest where there are lots of trees. I watch the birds. I climb the branches. I sit by the little pond that no one else knows about. And I listen.

I listen and listen and listen but I have only heard the wind whisper one word.

Wish.

And I wish and wish and wish that it will say something. That Mommy and Daddy will talk to me like they said they could. That this God will guide me like they said he would.

The drops of the rain tell me.

Drip.

The thunder tells me.

Crash.

And I will crash to the ground. Sometimes I will skin my knees and I will bleed, bleed into the puddles. And the red flows into the water, making a sort of design. And I watch.

And I will let my tears that come up through my eyes drip into the swirl of red. And I let them come in unison with the drip. drip. drip.

I like it when there is lightening. I will run to my pond and watch the lightening make lines in the sky. And there is light against dark. Then I think that Mommy and Daddy and their God are signaling me. Light. Light means hope. Right, Mommy?
No one can see my scabs because they are under my dress. I don’t tell anyone. I don’t want to tell anyone. Because no one else listens. No one else understands.

But I listen more. Sometimes I can make a song out of the basketballs bouncing, the feet against the ground and the click of the jump rope, the swish of the trees and branches, the whistle of the teacher, my own breathing.

Bounce.

Tap.

Click.

Swish.

Eeeeee.

Sigh.

It is not like the songs that everyone else listens to on the radio. It is not like the songs that the chorus sings and the band plays. Not even the drums can match up to it. But we watched a movie called Stomp in music class and they knew how to listen. They knew my song. Sort of.

I wonder if there will be a day when I don’t have to listen anymore. Or maybe there will be a day when I wake up and this was all just a dream. That Mommy and Daddy were being silly and that there is no God and that the dead can’t say anything because they are dead.

Maybe one day I will just go into a car and never come back to the flat like Mommy and Daddy did. It will just stay empty with the blanket on the couch and the uneaten old cereal from the day they never came back and their room that I never went into because it always felt so cold. And I will go into Heaven like Mommy said I would and be with her and Daddy and God and try to talk to the people down on earth with the wind. And I will try to make them listen. Because they should’ve listened in their first place.

Even if I never do leave life the way Mommy or Daddy did, even if I don’t leave for a long, long time, I still listen anyway, just in case one day I will never wake up from the dream.

No one knows that I listen. No one knows me. No one wants to know me.

I am nobody.

Just Jane.