Broken

A small worm crawled on the top of a railing. A railing that was around the roof-top of a 20 storied building. The sun was about to peep over the buildings of the city to finally call it dawn. The fog would probably take another hour or two to clear. A cold winter breeze gently swayed all the leaves on the top of that building. A girl walked walked up the stairs, through the door and out into the open. Under the open sky..she looked up and just wished for a moment that it was clear and sunny and warm on this winter morning. She decided to hang around for a while till the fog cleared. Had nothing much to do anyways..She flinched as she noticed the creepy crawler on the railing and just walked away in the opposite direction. The top of the building was pretty large and open..it was pleasurable to just wander around aimlessly.

In a small pile stashed away at a corner of this land, she had a bunch of the most random objects. Among them, was a small tin box full of little notes and scrap paper. The words on them without much value or meaning. But she was of the kind who wasn't a big fan of throwing things out. Everything she ever owned, ever made, ever became related to, turned in to a token of her memory. These little notes wouldn't make much sense to just anyone..twisted and metaphorical as they were. She was rummaging through the notes that day...one of these small pieces had a dark brown stain at a corner. She kind of smiled. It was a broken smile, reminding her of the time she bled from wounds she made herself. "It didn't hurt when.." she stopped her thought right there. Those were bad times...a time where she didn't really know the difference between day and night. Or rather..it was just all too foggy for her to have known. She found another note...almost felt embarrassed to read aloud her words in her own mind. She was..under the influence. Pins and needles..but of a whole different kind. She remembered those days..and just put the lid back on.

She glanced at the sun to see how far above the horizon it has gone...or maybe she was just trying to take her mind off for a bit..breathe a bit of the fresh air and just enjoy the misty weather. She scanned her eyes over the rest of the stuff...She knew from the changed positions that someone had his/her hands on her pile of stuff - maybe they were just looking for something useful. Heh. They sure didn't find anything. After all, it was just a collection of trash for anyone else - it even included a ceramic vase which has been glued together from pieces.

It was her favourite vase. During those times of pins and needles...one morning, she found it broken in her room. Given her level of attachment to even these inanimate objects, it's not too difficult to imagine how much pain she suffered for breaking something valued so much. The floor was wet..and the flowers, the stem and the leaves were strewn all over. She picked up all the pieces...careful to not leave out even the smallest of the pieces. Thankfully, it didn't shatter in to too many pieces...After letting the pieces dry for a while, she put them in a cardboard box and stashed it away in her closet.

It was only after a year or two that she brought out that cardboard box again. She was no longer under the leash...she was a free girl with a renewed spirit for life. As a challenge, and as a hobby, she decided to solve this puzzle in 3 dimensions. With a pack of superglue in stock, and after a few months of trial and error, she finally got the vase back to it's original shape. She took a billion pictures of it as she celebrated her success. She felt proud..content.

However, soon after, she got bored of it...and while giving her room a complete make over, she decided to put away the vase along with her other random junk on the rooftop of her building. There was no point in cluttering her apartment with these..and not a single soul in the building minded her using a bit of the roof-top space.

As the sun kept creeping higher in the sky and the fog got thinner..the sun started to shine its weak rays at the vase in the girl's hand. She looked at it...the lines where the pieces were brought together have collected some dust along the crease. They stood out and mapped the fragments out. She run her finger tip across the lines..thinking back about how proud she was to have built the vase back from scratch..but at the same time..she got reminded of the day she found it broken because of her own wasted time in life.

She was beginning to feel the warmth of the sun..finally. The morning mist was finally thinning out to give her a clear view of the city's skyline. The smog from the city's pollution smudged out the horizon..obviously. The girl felt happy. She looked up at the sky..and saw some nice white innocent clouds against the pale blue sky. She smiled. It's only possible for someone who has smiled at mother nature to know what it really feels like. She felt connected to the world. She felt happy - content with the world as it is. She headed towards the direction where she saw that worm earlier...It wasn't on the railing anymore..After minutes of looking around..through the leafy plants growing in pots around the roof, she found it. She realized this little bug was merely going from one plant to another. Slightly amused at her analysis of this little part of nature, she smirked.

It was time for her to go back to her apartment...so she closed the door behind her..and started off just another usual day - feeling completely refreshed by the clean morning air.