Rainbows...

“It’s fine,” she muttered again. “Seriously.”


Completely lost  in a pseudo world set precisely between never-before and ever-again, of course, only trying to convince herself... Though, she wasn’t doing a very good job of it...


She turned her eyes far away as she said . She needed then and she needed still, to keep the secret  thoughts that crossed her mind as she said the words... She knew enough that turning away conveyed
as much as, if not more than, her eyes did. It was only instinct, perhaps, to listen primarily to the voice that begged her to do so. It had always been the loudest.




“Fine,” she repeated.


She slowly closed her eyes... 


In the silence that followed, she could imagine letters of “Fine” floating in the air just above her head. Floating there, blocking the moon from view. She let herself think that she had sounded convincing. She would realize soon enough that she is not...


Wordlessly now, she was panicking. She was terrified of being wrong and scared of being right. She was, after all, still very much that same little girl that  never ever colored a sky without a rainbow on the page. Even before the words came, she always had images of what it should be… images of truth. She was holding on to “truth” just then, clenched tightly inside one fist, refusing to let it go. But, she thought, no one needed to know.




She reminded herself not to cry. Not then. Not yet.


After a powerful long pause came the reply, “Yes, but… it’s… not.”


She expelled an enormous sigh and opened her eyes to see if she could let herself cry...




“I know…” she confessed, “I’m just not sure why.”


Remembering back to childhood days, to the empty page… she suddenly recalled that she always, always, drew the rainbow’s outline first, sketching it in black ,white and many other colors,against a purple-blue, cloudy sky. 


Tears came fast and hard when she realized why.


“I... I know why," she finally managed. "Never mind.” 


“Rainbows?”


She nodded, whispering almost inaudibly, "TRUTH".