She opens the door and walks down the lane. She sees no one; no one sees her. That’s the way she likes it.
My name is Tina Vose and I always try to hold back my tears. Crying wouldn’t do me any good anyway, no one would ever notice. No one ever does. My parents are almost always away, and when they\'re not, they just go to their room. I never see them because I never go in there; it always smells of the smoke from their cigarettes and the burning coals from the fire place. It especially has that acidic smell, that burns the hair in your nostrils because of the pumpkins. Today\'s Halloween. My house is dark and musty, and the shutters are always closed. It\'s on the outskirts of the village. No wonder I don\'t have any friends.
The wind whistles in her ear as she passes the shop window that is displaying
pumpkin pinatas; she doesn’t go in.
I’m really shy all the time and never talk to anyone. At the shop I try to ask the storekeeper something, but he never hears me so I just run away. The only time people do interact with me is when I knock things over. They just start being angry and scream at me. When I walk around, it\'s like people just look right through me, or to the space next to me. They never talk to me. I always dread the days more than the nights because during the day I just feel like a walking shadow. I like walking in the open air, it clears my mind and makes me feel normal.
The leaves blow in her face as she passes her school. It’s always closed on halloween. The windows look like screaming mouths today, black holes in a ghost building.
I hate my school and my teacher: Miss Crowe. She is always really mean to me. In class, I sit near the back near the corner; I bother no one, no one bothers me. When I raise my hand in the classroom, which I very rarely do, the teacher just says: “no one? Okay, next question.” She’s so cruel. When I am in the playground I just sit on the bench and think how lucky everyone else is to have a friend. I just don’t have the courage to ask someone. I tried once, I tapped them on the shoulder but they just shuddered and said, “did some air just touch me?” and “what\'s that horrible smell?” I often linger on the end of games and hope that someone invites me in. They never do.
She walks along the road and past the river, the late night air blowing in her face as she heads to the park.
The park is a gloomy place in October, no one goes there. It\'s leaden, quiet but somehow beautiful, so it\'s perfect for me. I like to sit under the old oak tree and think about how it must feel like to belong. Sometimes I go on the swings and make up poems. When the moon is full, I go to the park at midnight and cry to myself. When there are other children at the park they never play with me! They just play and play without even giving me a second glance. There is a secret place in the park which is my “den,” I like to read down there.
She walks into the Library, musty, and full of cobwebs. She sits on the desk, and turns out the light. Her face always in shadow.
The Library is a dusty place, full of long lost books and dusty computers. It was abandoned a long time ago when the town, Deadman’s Corner wasn\'t such a sorry excuse as it is now. I come in and read every day even though it\'s a wreck. When I read, it seems like the days just drift by. Like a never ending book of time. Until those days turn into weeks, and those weeks turn into months and so on. A library of moments. Although no one ever disturbs me when I read, it’s like I can hear voices of people who once were in the exact same position as me.
As she walks into the forlorn forest the sun creeps behind the shimmering horizon and the luminous moon wakes from its heavy slumber. The man on the moon\'s deep black hole eyes seem to taunt her as she walks through the trees.
I often feel like I’m the girl on the moon, when people look at me, I feel like I’m a thousand miles away. An irrelevant speck of dust on an old dusty bookshelf. The forest is a place I can always rely on, a place of safe haven, that grants me the thing nothing else can: a home. If I come out really early in the morning, I can see the sharp eyed owls fluttering about and catching mice and voles. I often feel sorry for them as I see their bodies being crushed in the majestic beak of the creature. Sometimes, It’s as if I can feel their souls slipping away into the paradox that is death. On clear nights I can see Venus, and all the little woodland creatures come out to fight, and eat nuts and berries. The forest is my special place.
She walks past the bus station, her hair flapping in the wind like an angry banshee.
Whenever I’m on the bus, the people never talk to me, not even the bus driver, although he is nice to me. He always let’s me go onto the bus for free. I like thinking on the bus. About me, about the next poem I’m going to write, about why everybody hates me so much. I think about anything that comes into my head simply because it shuts out the rest of the excrutiating pain on the inside. The most interesting conversations I have are with myself. Like how can so many people on one bus talk so much, It is nonstop!
She walks past the crumbling church, a big mass of rock, dust and old memories.
I like the church. Even though it was shut down and barred up years and years ago, it doesn\'t stop me from slipping in through the hole in the wall every once in a while! The Church is dark, musty and smells like a pigsty but I still pray in it. I have never been much of a religious person, but ever since three years ago I changed. When everyone began to hate me and ignore me. When I started to feel like I was alone in the middle of a big ocean, like I was a castaway, I started praying once a week for a friend.
I don’t know why, but all the bugs hate me too; they take one glance at me and just scuttle\\crawl\\slither away Like they’re all afraid of me. At least I’m the only person who ever goes into the church!
She arrives at her destination, the dismal graveyard. The dreary grey stones seem to be staring at her, inviting her in.
Even though in other places I feel like I am at home; the graveyard is the only place I really feel like me. The only place where I can talk to myself with real privacy. Three years ago when no one hated me, I had a friend called Annie-May. She died that year in a car crash when she was being driven to school by her parents.
When I am in the graveyard I feel like I can talk to her, have conversations with her in my head. I also like looking at all the gravestones, I once found my grandma: Sarah Molly
and even Miss Crowe’s mum, Winona Isabella Tara Carol Haller. And one last grave that I find only on Halloween. Tina Vose.
The girl crosses herself, lies onto the grave, an owl hoots, a thick mist surrounds the stones. The mist clears, and she is gone. A ghost, a drifter… A castaway.