"Thoughts in Silence," by Natasha T.

     I usually don’t talk. It's just me in my head and no one else. I like it that way, because that way, I am in control. If I want, the landscape of my mind can be as quiet as a winter morning, with everything frosted over making a snow globe of silence, like that Hawaiian one I see on my desk every morning when I wake up. Or, if I want, it can change. Spring, with its beautiful flowers fighting their way out of the snow, and some who don’t quite make it. I like to think of myself as one of those flowers, the ones that pop up like popcorn through the snow, today they’re not here and tomorrow they are, strong as ever, as if it’s their right to be beautiful. Which it is. But maybe I’m not at all like them, and that doesn’t really matter because I think I’m like them and that’s what matters. My thoughts are what matter because my thoughts are my world. And nothing else.
     My footsteps slip a little when they hit the icy bridge. They don’t click on the ice like I want them to, but in my head they do. Click clack click clack. Their sound is full of pride. I walk along the bank of the slippery canal that weaves its way through Venice like a snake. Curling round and round. I wave, and a gondola comes over. As it stops it drifts ever so slightly, sending ripples across the water that had once been so still, it was almost solid. I step in and murmur one word.
     “Wherever.”
     And we’re off. The man sitting across from me clearly isn’t a tourist, or he is one who just happened to know what the weather would be like and had two warm fur coats in his bag. So, he isn’t a tourist. I keep waiting for him to say something, to try and start a conversation, but he doesn’t. I like him. We sit in silence and I study him. He has a raggedy beard clinging to his face like overgrown moss on a tree. And if he were a tree, he would be an ancient one. Not the frail kind but the tough and polished by age kind. His peppery brown and gray hair is almost completely covered by a burgundy hat with ear flaps. His skin is a medium brown, and even though I can’t see them I imagine his hands are rough like tree bark. Over his tree-bark-hands he wears practical black mittens that match his black overcoat.
     I wonder what he saw of me. Probably a petite girl engulfed by a chocolate brown wool coat. With worn out boots that look older than my years. Maybe he would even look carefully enough to notice that my cinnamon stocking cap I wore over my thin tawny hair was the only thing the really fit me. It was unlikely, but maybe he would even notice how my coat is men's cut and my boots are sturdy woodcutter’s that my dad used to wear every day in winter. And maybe he is some close relative of Sherlock Holmes and he can tell that the heavy weight of my clothes is not the only burden that weighs down my small frame.
     He studies me and my odd ensemble of clothes, an unreadable look passes over his face. His eyes seem to see closer to the truth then anyone yet but still... not quite there. I almost hope that he can see the truth in me just so I can see it reflected in his face. I feel his face would be the perfect canvas for the truth. But instead he looks away, as if he knows that I’m not ready to see it anyway.