Ursa

A grey sky, church bells ringing seven o’clock. Another boring Tuesday morning.

“Yet, another day in heaven,” she snorted, thinking in a sarcastic voice, imitating her delusional mother.

At the end of the road the girl was walking down, she could easily spot the top of a church, brandishing high and mighty the holy cross, tempting the heavens. To her eyes, it was a cheap attempt. A mix of lies, too. Priests and anyone Catholic, really, can assure you that if you bare faith, God will listen. A piece of metal placed a little higher than the rest of the surrounding buildings won’t make it any holier. But of course, she kept to herself. In 1954, no one really listens to these kinds of things without shunning you by the time you get to the bit where you criticize the Priesthood.

Her school being nearly glued to this house of God, she used this cross as a landmark. It was useful for something after all, she’d like to think. The teen took her time, walking at the slowest speed possible, most likely pandering, assuming that her classes would be as lifeless as the ones the day before. She even stopped in the middle of the neighborhood she crossed every day, setting her bag down, only to braid her hair, undoing it only to tie it up again, and again, and once more, knowing well enough that a single loose thread of hair would mean dirty glares from her classmates, snickers and laughs behind her back. Paying so much attention to this detail, she failed to realize that far behind, where no one would bother to look, a presence was about to make itself known.

Something about the way this day felt in her bones told her that something was different, something was darker, the same feeling you get when you enter a crime scene, for you know that something evil prowls the area. She felt this, and looked up, unused to feeling this type of darkness in a place away from church, away from home. She looked to the forest nearby, peeking a bit to see if anything could be seen through the curtains of the nearby homes. Only quiet, if anything, the faint noise from a family dispute at the dinner table.

Instead of fearing this unknown, the girl got up, taking up the same pace she was walking at before. She was accepting it. It was the only way she could forget about it.

“ ’Forget about it…’ ” she sung in a low voice, no particular objective in mind. She hummed a bit. She knew damn well she couldn’t sing, but that’s why she sang alone.

The menace walked out of the shadows, arranging his jersey polo, passing a finger in his sleek black hair. His footsteps made no sound. His goal was ahead, his job was predictable. His mouth opened as he was near enough to-

“ ’Take a little advice from me

Play around with TNT

But baby, don’t fuck around with love…’ ”

‘Don’t fuck around with love’, the 40’s tune banned for its inappropriate content, fairly unknown of at the time, had been sung by the fourteen year old. He had seen it all, at this point. The very fact that the girl’s voice wasn’t exactly angelic let him know that this wasn’t sung for an aesthetic purpose. It was for the girl’s own amusement.

“Well I’ll be damned…” he let out in a breath.

Hearing this, she turned around. There was nothing there. The sudden realization that someone might be listening chilled her to the bone. On that note, her pace quickened, escaping this street that reeked of frighteningly normal people.