True Beauty
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A young girl, no older than ten, stands on the street corner watching the daily crowd pass her by. The wind tosses the girl�s thin blonde hair in every direction, and grabs at her jacket filling it like a sail on a boat trying to carry her away. If it weren�t for the many holes that were in it, the wind might accomplish just that. It is not cold, merely windy. This is a good thing as the girl�s flimsy sun dress which has been torn from the cruel pavement which she sleeps on at night, does not aid her jacket in keeping her warm. She looks down at her dirt covered hands and stares at her small fingers that can not do much more than hold the same single water-coloured rose that she holds day after day. A quarter is the price for this part of the young girl�s innocence. She wishes she could keep it, as it is a constant reminder of the beauty in the world from which she is hidden, but knows if she does not eat soon she will surely starve. Afraid of trying to steal an apple for dinner as she did last night, she looks again at her hands and opens them to see her palms. The marks are still very much visible and just as painful from when the store owner had caught her with the apple in her hand and whipped her palms with a thin wooden rod as a lesson to never steal from him again. She knows she must sell this rose in order to afford to live. As she sees the ground suddenly become covered by a shadow, the young girl looks up and sees what she mistakes as an angel. A woman is standing over her and as the sun shines directly behind the woman, it creates a crown of golden light around her head. Dressed in her old and well worn-out rags of clothes, the girl looks up at the woman, and envisions all she wants to be. Pretty, wearing not expensive, yet nice clothes, and walk with an air of elegance and the smell of pride and accomplishment lingering behind her. The young girl tries to speak to her angel but is overcome by fear of intellectually meeting the standards her physical appearance has set. She hopes this angel has come to save her and raises the rose to her imagining how wonderful it will be to taste a slice of bread fresh from the store not yet tampered by the other foods in the garbage where she commonly finds something to eat. The woman looks down at the young girl and instantly sneers at her resemblance of poverty. She wonders how on this busy street they would allow a child of such disgraceful appearance stand in clear view of all who pass by. The woman looks at the young girl�s matted hair, then raises her hand to her own hair making sure that every strand of it I in it�s place. The forty minute hair due is essential in showing others how well kept she is and successful she is in this world. Such is her clothes, shoes, make-up, and any other part that is seen by the eye. They could never know the truth. She looks again at the young girl and dismisses any memory of herself looking the exact same way when she was that age. How long it took her to forget the taste of stale food, and the smell of the sewage after midnight creeping up from the tunnels below. The woman immediately turns around and continues her walk down the street soon becoming one of the many faceless people in a sea of moving bodies. She slightly shakes her head as if to shake the image of you young girl out of her mind. The young girl brings the flower to her nose and breathes in the sweet smell of purity and knows that surely someone will want this beautiful rose to keep them company as it has for her the past week. She is not disappointed that the woman walked away from her. She is used to many people stopping to look at her, then continue on their life in a normal setting off the street corner. But to her, this is her home. She turns around and skips down an alley towards the house that she has made for herself out of the pieces of cardboard she could find. She lies down and puts the rose right next to her, repeating to herself, �if we are surrounded in beauty, someday we will become what we see.�
