frustration voiced in twelve point font

Sometimes I feel like a brick. Rough around the edges. its sharp corners are sharp. Although they don't mean to be. One time a little kid fell and cut her knee on me. I watched her from my place, at the end of a long short wall, only about seven or eight of us tall. Running, her young hair fluttered in her face but she didn't notice. Or care. She ran, her fingers innocently caressing the rough surface of the brick wall, stirring flakes of red that twitched under her touch before settling. Or if her fingers strayed close to the edge, the tiny flakes bounced silently off the wall, falling in ecstasy towards the deep waters immediatly below. They would see the world this way.

I saw her fall. Her steps thudded awkardly but with a determined gait. But the shoes, which her father had given her as a gift, had shoelaces that required constant attending to lest they become danger to the wearer, the blue imitation leather the bane of the distracted owner. the shoe lace floated uncaring with her gait, Lazily drifting behind her. Its taped end frayed slightly as it dragged against the ground for split seconds at a time, rising and falling. The mottled white cotton of the flat lace squeezed together in pain as her left foot stepped down on the right lace. Her right foot continued forward too thrilled with the whistling of wind in its ears to notice what was happening.

Her expression was one of shock as she was betrayed by those she least expected. One often does not expect thier apparel to turn on them and are always suprised when they do. She fell for years. It was her first time experiencing the exhilarating thrill of fear and danger and being unable to stop it. Her mouth opened forming words of horror she did not know. her eyes watched the ground approach, unbelieving in thier gaze, her hand shooting out to grab hold of the brick, the flake impressed in her hands as she grabbed hold.

She fell towards the wall so that I could clearly see her as she passed by. I longed to help her, to reach out with arms that I did not have and comfort her, catching her, consoling. Her knee hit surprisingly hard. In the world of physics I suppose it was only a light tap. She had caught the corner of the brick with her hand, which swung her towards and past me. Her right foot, still in shock at the judas it had harbored unwittingly even in mid step. scrambled to regain footing, but in its panic it simply propelled the knee toward a glancing blow with one brick out of dozens. Her skin caught on my rough surface, I could feel with all the grinding agony of nails on a chalkboard her skin scraping against mine. Nearly invisible they left a trail across my face, leaving tears of blood. This was the longest most agonizing part of her fall. Pain rippled through her young nerve system, opening pathways with such force as they had never experience. My whole being shuddered at the horror of it. It lasted years.

It was a glancing blow in the world of physics but it knocked me with unimaginble force. It shook the mortar that ensconed me. My concrete womb crumbled slightly, cracks appearing.

She hit the ground.

I was launched from my position by the weight of her young fall. the vibrations, taut with fear and horror and anger, shattered my hold on what had been my home as long as I can remember.

As I fell away I could see all around me for the first time. All at once as I don't really have eyes. The water, once the innocent rushing of blood in my ears, now roared closer, scaringme. I was stunned. Behind me I could see my refuge slowly drifting away. its gray cracked mortar looked cold. I could not return.

I paused mid air to examine her where she lay.

Her hands were still braced against the gravel of the Path. The sparkling gray dust created a mosaic on her hands with the red flakes and the blood. She feared to move them. Her head did not move as she looked straight ahead down the path, not yet recovered enought to survey any wounds, she lay in shock. It was her first fall.

Her eyes still filled with Fear and horror and anger slowly calmed. Fear, horror, and anger respectfully took thier bows, their time done, and rode away down her cheeks on the tears that cut wide and deep swathes of cleansed skin through the dust.

Satisfied for the moment, I resumed my descent.