I didn’t know her from a bar of soap. In fact, by that time, I had almost forgotten what even a bar of soap looked like. No, I don’t know why she stopped, how she got there, or what gave her the courage to speak to the likes of me; but meeting her changed my life forever.

The grey wall of the building across the alleyway was the same as always. The narrow empty street was dark, devoid of sunlight at any given time of day. Homeless wretches and drunkards would wander by on the odd occasion, but apart from these briefs spurts of activity, the street was as lifeless and dead as my heart within me.

For a time that I had lost count of, I clutched the steel bars of my cell. For another innumerable time, I closed my eyes in grief; my wrongs that had landed me in this prison came back to mock and taunt me again. The silence of my one room world amplified the voices of contempt inside my head; the volume like a roar that threatened to tear my heart in two. I was trapped body, mind and soul, and would stay so for the rest of my life. The thought that I might live to be an old man was more than I could bear, and I groaned aloud through gritted teeth.

All of a sudden, through the shroud of torturous voices that filled my head, I heard soft scuffing footsteps in the distance. Their hesitancy and lightness alerted me to the fact that the approaching person was not one of the alley’s usual stumbling beggars. Willing for any distraction to take my mind off my pain, I pressed my face against the bars and strained my eyes to look towards the end of the street. Eventually something came into view, and the figure standing there made me draw a sharp breath.

She would have only been around eight years old. Her yellow dress that reflected the sun almost made the darkness of the gloomy street seem lighter. Slowly she made her way down the street, hesitant and cautious. As she put one tentative step in front of another, I could see that she was treading carefully so as not to step in the oily puddles. Her tiny feet wore black satiny shoes, and her arms spread from her sides as though she would somehow keep a better distance between herself and the puddles that way. As she drew near to my cell window, I could see her tearstained face more clearly. She had blonde curly hair that framed aqua/green eyes, and her small mouth was turned down studiously as though she had just made up her mind on something. Her entire image reminded me so strongly of the daughter I once had, that the deep remorse swelled within me as a sob in my throat. I coughed, the sound shattering the silence of the street.

The girl gasped, stopped and looked up. By now she was level with my window and I could see down into her pure, guileless eyes.

“Oh, hello,” she breathed.

I dropped my suitcase on the road, brushing the hair that whipped into my eyes. The track stretched from horizon to horizon, seemingly endless, the breeze creating willy-willy’s in the red dust.  

I sighed. Where was I going? What had come over me when I packed my suitcase and started walking? I looked back over my shoulder; whence I had come. The forest was dark and forbidding. Yet up ahead...

The setting sun shone, the dusky light revealing the way. I would not go back. I would press on to my goal. I picked up my suitcase, and kept walking.

~