Lady Luck

There is a woman made of porcelain, her hair, strung together with gold, braided with copper. She comes to sit, to remove burden from her delicate body, and rest. She crosses her ankles over one another, and casts her inner daily demons away within one prolonged sigh. She has lines in her face, too deep to reverse with any cream, or collagen. She reaches into her bottomless purse, pulls out a cigarette box marked "lights", and lights. With her first inhale, she closes her eyes, and lets the sun warm her housed skin. To the left of her, there are 4 children marching in lines, chewing bubble gum with every one of their tiny teeth. Among the four children, there are three boys and one little girl. The little girl marches daintily, cautiously placing her feet into dirt and mud, worrying that her mother will scold her for scuffing up her new school shoes. She is wearing a pink dress, fresh with morning creases. The three boys are certainly not in love with her, but one of the three boys secretly loves the color pink. He accidentally favors her, he doesn't rush her strange shoe checking routine. Not that he doesn't want to march as fast as the other boys, he's just too transfixed on the moving pink blob in front of him to remember girls have cooties. Out loud, one of the boys, the red haired boy, curses the mud for taking to his feet like quicksand. He quickly decides that the marching game will be a short-lived trade and marches all the way back to the playground. The third boy, a tall, awkward, and strange boy, moves his head side to side with every corresponding footstep he takes. He picks at his head, due to the infestation of lice dwelling within his jungle hair. Sometimes he gets lucky, finds a bug and squeezes its guts out between his pointer finger, and his thumb. There is a slight moment of his satisfaction, then a dull realization of shame. The doll woman, still sitting down, breathing slowly and seriously, notices a ladybug has landed on one of the children. Then, just as slowly as she sat, she stands, walking over to remove the bug from the pink collar of the little girl. The little girl, still dedicated to keeping her shoes clean, doesn't notice the woman at all. In fact, she was completely startled by the womans shadow, and only noticed it because she suddenly felt submerged in darkness. While the woman went to pluck the ladybug from the girls dress, the little girl reached for the womans hand, and pushed it away. The woman was alarmed by the rudeness of such a young child, and rolled her eyes. But children are much more observant than adults when it comes to the little things. The little girl looked up at the woman, shielded her face from the sun now shining down on her blonde curls. The girl frowned at the woman and said "Don't you know that it's good luck for one of these to land on you?" The woman, jaded by her days work, her sore feet, and her headache, chuckled slowly and said "I hardly believe in luck anymore". The little girl, who had started to twirl in circles, stopped dead in her tracks upon hearing such terrible news. She then cupped the ladybug in her tiny hands, looked at it, closely, like the bug was a long lost friend, then set it on the womans shoulder. After the two exchanged glances, the little girl looked down at her feet and asked if the woman would like to play in the mud. The woman, still staring at the ladybug inching up her arm, thought for a second, then agreed. She took a few steps until the girl told her to take off her shoes first. "My mom hates mud in my shoes, doesn't yours?" The woman smiled, and slid her feet out of her heels, felt the ground beneath her, closed her eyes, and thanked the ladybug for reminding her what it was like to be alive. "How lucky." She said, and stepped toe first into the mud.