She sat down on the grass exhausted. The sun had almost set and she could only see bright orange rays peeking at her behind the hills in the distance. She still had a long way to go but that could wait, she needed her rest first.

The grass was soft and damp and the atmosphere had started to turn cold. Birds were flying back to their nests and squirrels scurried quickly back to their homes. She drew her shawl about her and hugged herself reveling in the peace and quiet of the countryside. She tucked her feet beneath her and gently uncoiled her hair which was in a neat little bun. She sat still as if in fear that the slightest noise or stir could break up this beautiful moment.

It had been a busy day; she had set out for work at the usual time, taken the usual bus, the sky looked the same usual grey due to the smoke from the factory. The school looked dull and forbidding as usual, the walls were a dull grey, the windows dusty, and the floor even dustier. She remembered how she felt as she entered the building; depressed. The staffroom looked the same, the faces inside were as usual sleepy, bored, malicious or grumpy. She remembered how the supervisor had confronted her in the stairway and told her that she would have to re-write every single one of the fifty reports of the students in her class. She remembered the faces of her students as she entered the class; they seemed to sneer at her behind their faces of masked morning cheerfulness. She remembered how the day progressed and how the disagreement had started during lunch in the lunch room. She remembered the snide remarks and the malicious looks and she knew then that she had had enough. She couldn't take it any longer and she needed to leave, not just the school but the city as well. She hated the smoky air she had to breathe, the dirty streets and the sounds coming from the factory. She hated her small one bedroom apartment with just one window. She hated the noise from the vehicles outside; there was nothing she liked about the city; nothing at all.

She did not care about anything at all. All she wanted to do was get away, away from everything. All the commitments, the obligations, away from the life she was used and the life she hated. She wanted to start over as a free person with a clean slate and a happier state of mind. A bus that took her to the farthest village from the city was all she needed and that was what she took on leaving the lunch room. She did not bother to take her large leather bag full of books, her purse nor any of her other belongings. All she ever took with her was her hat and her shawl and just a few pennies in her pocket from which she paid her fare. She remembered stepping down at the village and seeing the fields. Joy like what she never felt before rushed through every vein in her body, she remembered her sigh of happiness and walking…just walking through the fields…

It was pitch black now and she gingerly got up from her seat on the grass; it was time to make a fire and she could not wait to fall asleep under the stars.