The Girl in the Grey Dress
If you were to ask me when or where I first saw her, I wouldn’t be able to tell you with any amount of certainty. I could only say that by the time she first allowed me to approach her, I had already seen her many times before.
You see, she is quite shy, much the same way I am. That would perhaps explain why I am usually alone when I see her, although I have seen her at times in shopping malls and other crowded places.
Her appearance makes it easy to pick her out of a crowd. She has skin that is creamy white, in contrast to her long black hair, which falls about her shoulders and frames a face of innocence and open beauty. Her large eyes are grey, matching the colour of the dresses she always wears.
The first time that I can remember getting more than just a passing glimpse of her was on a cool October night. A wind-driven rainstorm had blown through earlier in the evening, but the skies had cleared and a bright, crescent moon dominated a sky laden with stars.
Rainwater still meandered in the streets toward sewer grates that were virtually choked with dead leaves.
As I walked, my footfalls echoed back to me from the walls of nearby buildings, lost momentarily behind the sound of a passing car.
A harsh yellow light spilled down over me from humming streetlamps.
I looked across the street and saw her there, looking into a storefront window, her back to me, one of her delicate hands resting on the wet pane of glass.
She must have heard the slowing of my footsteps then, because she turned and saw me. A slight smile played at the corners of her mouth. Perhaps, I thought, she recognized me from our previous brief encounters, just as I had recognized her.
I faced her then, my hands self-consciously jammed into the pockets of my jeans.
She stepped away from the storefront into the direct light of a streetlamp, her flat-soled shoes making no sound, her every movement flawless, beautiful, and eerily fluid. A cool breeze ruffled the bottom of her long dress and lifted her raven-black hair from her shoulders, blowing a few wisps across her face. With a graceful sweep of her hand, she pushed the hair back behind her ear.
I managed to say “Hello,” although I thought my voice wavered and sounded too weak to span the distance between us.
She responded with a tiny, tentative wave, and that same half-smile.
Summoning my courage, I took a step toward her, but as I did her smile vanished, replaced by a look of growing apprehension. I lifted my hand to her in a placating gesture, but she was no longer looking at me. She was watching the approach of a transport truck, its headlight beams sweeping across her startled face.
Then the truck was between us, its passing seeming to take forever.
In a wake of spray lifted from the wet roadway and a flash of red taillights, the truck was gone. So was the girl in the grey dress, although the duration of the truck’s passing was in reality no more than the span of a few heartbeats.
***
She has a flair for these mysterious exits, often leaving me wondering if I’d seen her at all. The most poignant example of this occurred on a spring day, two years later.
I had just boarded a bus and was walking down the aisle. As I neared the back, I saw a girl who I had recently met at a party, through a mutual friend. I had only conversed with her for a short time before I was pulled away to take part in some long-winded, alcohol-induced discussion, which as it turned out never really required my participation. I had meant to resume my conversation with her, but never ended up getting the opportunity...until now.
She was sitting alone.
As I approached, she looked up and smiled, but my attention was now focused over her shoulder, where I had spotted another familiar face, that of a beautiful girl wearing grey, whose long black hair and milky white skin existed in a captivating visual symbiosis, each serving to accentuate the other.
I walked past the smiling girl as if I hadn’t seen her, and sat down beside the one in grey, who was looking out the window and hadn’t given any indication that she had noticed me yet. My heart was galloping in my chest like a runaway horse, and vainly I tried to rein it in. I chanced a look over, and found that she was still looking outside, her hands folded in the lap of her dress.
As the bus picked up speed, a breeze from an open window played through her hair, the smell of which was intoxicating and did little to help slow my heart rate. It was a blend of flowers and spice; redolent of honeysuckle and cloves, I thought; but that wasn’t quite right. There was a hint of some other scent that I couldn’t seem to put my finger on. It was very familiar and brought with it a strong sense of nostalgia. I suddenly began to feel light-headed, and my stomach lurched alarmingly as a wave of vertigo swept over me. Closing my eyes, I forced myself to relax. Soon the dizziness passed, and by degrees I felt my composure returning. Even the fragrance of her hair seemed to have receded somewhat.
I opened my eyes to discover that I sat alone. Only the essence of her hair remained, carried to me on a breeze from the open window.
***
After that I only saw her from a distance, and only for fleeting moments at a time. Once I spotted her across a movie theatre; once in a crowded bar; once at a subway station, as we stood on opposite platforms while a train hurtled past between us.
One February evening during the worst snowstorm of the year, I saw her walking down my street. She wore a hooded mantle over her dress, which she held tightly around her throat, her head bent to the driving snow.
She looked up and saw me standing at my front window, but neither did she acknowledge me nor slow her pace.
Long after the storm had swept away any trace of her passing, I stood, staring out the frost-lined window at the swirling snow.
***
Of course, I couldn’t predict that this was leading toward what would become the most significant of my encounters with her.
It was a magnificent day in June, and the sun’s radiance was cast down from an equally resplendent sky.
I was walking by a park where I used to play as a child. It was empty. I sat down on a weather-beaten bench and stretched out my legs. Before long, I sensed movement at the edge of my vision, a swirl of black, white and grey against a background of red and green.
There she was, standing across the street in front of a rose garden, her long hair cascading over bare shoulders. She reached down and picked a single flower.
I remained motionless, scarcely daring to breathe, afraid of frightening her away, as I had always done before.
She turned toward the park, caressing her cheek with the petals of a rose as black as sable.
Perplexed, I looked back at the garden, and saw that all the roses there were red.
She crossed the street into the park like a ghost, so light of step and smooth of stride that she projected the illusion that she was somehow floating instead of walking. She hummed to herself as she went, one hand moving slowly with the melody, the sound sweetly inviting, almost hypnotic. She was the picture of elegance, an earthbound angel. My senses drank in the sight and sound of her. I was entirely captivated.
She stopped suddenly in front of a set of swings; her melody abruptly cut off in mid-note. After a moment of reflection, she turned and sat down on one of the swings. For several minutes she just sat there quietly, pondering the black rose she held in her small hands. Then she lifted her head and looked directly at me. She had known I was there all along.
Without looking away from me, she reached out and took hold of the chains as if she were about to start swinging, but instead of pushing back with her legs, simply lifted her feet off the ground.
The creaking of the chain links seemed like the only sound in the universe as she drifted slowly back and forth. Still she watched me.
I stood up, and on unsteady legs started moving cautiously toward her. I feared that even during the instant of blinking my eyes she might disappear. But she didn’t. As I drew near she remained passive, her face displaying no emotion.
I stopped beside her and cleared my suddenly dry throat. “Hello...again,” I managed.
She looked up at me through dancing grey eyes and offered me her coy smile. Then she scissor-kicked her legs like an impatient child, and her lips pulled back over perfect white teeth in a smile so shockingly beautiful that I felt as though my heart might burst. In retrospect, that was probably the happiest moment of my life.
Her eyes said, “Swing me.” She then turned her attention away from me, and waited.
I had nothing against which to measure the level of acceptance she had just accorded me.
I walked behind her. I was so close to her then that I could have reached out and touched her. My fingers itched to feel the softness of her hair, the smoothness of her skin; I longed to wrap my arms around her and kiss her neck, her cheek, her lips.
Above all else though, I wanted to gain her trust, so fighting the desire to reach my hands around her slender waist, I took hold of either side of the wooden seat instead.
The smell of her hair was maddening. Although the essence of flowers and spice were all around me, it was that underlying scent, both intimate and comforting, and whose origin still eluded me, which drove me to distraction.
I backed up, pulling the swing with me and lifting her from the ground. As I released the swing, her hair brushed against my face.
***
The world shimmered in front of my eyes, its features distorting; objects somehow lost their cohesiveness, blending together in a swirl of liquid colour then separating again into new shapes.
I found myself standing in the middle of a bustling amusement park. I could see children’s rides and games of chance, and in the background a Ferris wheel, turning lazily against an azure sky.
I took in all the sounds of the place: the droning of voices; the music; the loud metallic wailing of roller coaster cars co-mingled with the shrieks of those within, as they plummeted down a steep slope; the luring calls of the barkers and carnies.
Out of the crowd of milling people emerged a man and a woman. Between them was young boy of perhaps three years, each of his hands enfolded in one of theirs.
I recognized at once that the man was my father and the woman, my mother. I glanced down at the child’s face and saw that I was looking at myself. I was suddenly that child again, innocent, and safe from the corruption of the world.
My eyes blurred with tears, and in that absence of vision I became more aware of that smell in her hair that had so defied recognition. In this setting, it was easy to associate the sweet smell of candied apples and cotton candy, a smell I found to be distinctly reminiscent of my youth.
I blinked back the tears from my eyes, wanting only to return to a time where everything I saw filled me with a sense of wonderment.
***
But as my vision cleared I found I was looking down at an empty swing, swaying back and forth, the chain links creaking in time with its movement.
I looked beyond the swing and saw her standing there, watching me intently as she smelled the black rose. “I’m sorry,” was all I could think of to say.
She turned and ran.
After a moment of hesitation, I was after her.
She ran with deceptive speed in the direction of a huge elm tree, her feet kicking up the bottom of her dress, her dark hair trailing behind like the mane of a wild horse. She disappeared around the back of the elm, but not before looking back to see if I followed.
When I reached the tree I stopped, placed my hands on the trunk, then carefully looked around to the other side, expecting to see her there. She wasn’t. I leaned my head against the tree, closed my eyes in frustration, and said quietly to myself, “I don’t even know your name.”
Even before I opened my eyes, I knew she was there, the fragrance of her hair having given her away. I turned and she stood before me, her large eyes as scintillating as gemstones.
She inclined toward me, gently resting a hand on my shoulder, and in a voice as soft as velvet, whispered a word into my ear.
It was fortunate that I was already leaning against the tree, because my legs began to give way beneath me. Instantly, my head felt like it was full of sand, and I sensed consciousness beginning to slip away. In the final moments before the world went black, I saw a beautiful girl dressed in grey, her arm extended toward me, her hand holding a black rose.
When I came around, I found I was lying beside a dying elm tree, at the edge of a park where I used to play as a child.
***
The word she whispered to me changed everything. I know now that she wants me, and always has. She has never feared me, but chose to appear as I wanted her to, knowing that I would become obsessed and desire her over anyone else.
She offered me the black rose, and in taking it I fear I would have given myself completely over to her.
Now that I know her name, I can’t help but think of her more often; and the more I think of her, the more susceptible I become to her charms.
Whenever I see her now, she entices me with her radiant smile, and bids me to take the rose.
She comes to my bed as I lie awake at night. I can feel her warm breath on the back of my neck, and the soft caress of what could only be the black rose against my back. But I pretend to be asleep.
It would be so easy to just give in to her, and she is confident that I will.
I know that I would feel safe in her arms, but I also know that it would be a false sense of security. I know that she would remain with me always, but when I became old and began to feel the last grains of life slipping through my fingers, she would provide no comfort, leaving me to spend my final hours bitter and resentful.
I must never accept her black rose, but continue to turn away from her.
She is ageless, and I fear her more than death itself.
Her name is Loneliness.
