Sylvia

No one notices the girl on the train. She’s shaking, but only because she is resting her head against the window. Travel vibrations lift the ends of her hair, shift the tips of her fingers and nose. She is young, but so are other people. Her clothes might be too young for her body, but her coat is impenetrable, so she might as well be face and hands and an ankle, peering around its edges.

No one notices when she leaves, because by then she is the last passenger at the last stop. No one is there to see her as she bites her lip, tightens the coat. No one can see how she fumbles with the doors (someone had already opened them, before). She clutches a bag; nothing special there.

No one notices the girl as she walks, quickly and in the dark, because she’s got a walk with a purpose. Few look twice at a purposeful walk, let alone ask if it’s a lie.

No one notices the girl in the park. It is small and badly lit, somewhere near the centre of what can’t quite be called a town. No one how she sets down her bag, unbuttons her coat—people might notice that, it’s cold!—and lets it fall.

No one notices the running girl. She runs, hair filling with wind and cold and mist, becoming bigger than clouds, and she’s laughing. Breathless gasps, that echo unheard. She’s crying, perhaps, but so are other people.

No one notices the fallen girl, head resting against her bag, blanketed in an old tweed coat. No one sees as she looks up, trying to find stars through clouds. No one hears the girl on the grass.

“Oh,” she says.

“Fuck.”