Margaret by Ernesto Priego

Margaret sat in the stairs of the square. A concrete sky looked down upon her with a little bit of pity, so there was not a single drop of rain to spoil her evening. She just looked beyond, into the distance, as if waiting for another albatross to pass her way.

Margaret wore a pair of worn low-rise jeans and a skinny white t-shirt that allowed her belly button to be seen. Her skin was the color of milk and her hair the color of Italian espresso, as black as the shiny pair of Doc Martens boots she always wore. She would sit there and stare at the yellow stitching of the plastic soles and caress the soft surface of the shoes. She liked to imagine she would take those same boots somewhere else, make them step on something else than this same ground she now stepped on. She liked to fantasize about walking distances, taking planes, riding a motorcycle, driving a Mini with the union jack painted on the top across the country, maybe all the way through the tunnel, into different countries where other languages were spoken, different currencies were spent and people looked the other way to cross the street. Margaret scratched her head with her left hand, laughing a little because she imagined herself to look like a monkey. The thing is, no one seemed to be looking at her.

Her hair, not-so-short but not-so-long, looked spikey and uncared for, even if in a thoughtful and premeditated way. Her eyes were big and sort of sad, the color of honey. Even though she did not like to wear a lot of make-up -as her so-called mates from school-, a thin line of black shadow emphasized the shape and color of her eyes. And so Margaret sat, in the stairs of the square, sheltered by a black blanket of a sky full of little light holes that were the stars this time of the year.

Margaret felt lonely, as usual, but was not sad. She was simply expectant. The trouble was, so she thought, she had no clue what she was waiting for. What she did know indeed was that she was supposed to be waiting for something to happen in her life. Margaret looked fixedly at the screen of her mobile phone, playing with the keys, writing nonsensical phrases that never quite got to compose a txt message that would get actually sent. She just sat there, then, and played around with her mobile. The rest was silence, she thought, as she realized there was no one she could actually call or txt, even though she had lots of names and numbers saved in her mobile's address book. She sighed, not really knowing why. She just stared into the distant landscape, a flat scene of houses that looked just like each other, windows opened into places she had never been to, pieces of strange lives she would never get to live.

Margaret sat in the stairs and looked at her watch. Two hours had passed since she had left her mates at the pub. It was summer, after all, and she had had a couple of gin and tonics, even though she knew she could not afford them. What the hell, she had thought, and went on to have a couple. She had played darts but had lost as usual, since Katrina, the cunt, would always have such perfect shots. She had got bored and out of money, so she left them there, drinking and jiggling and looking at the local boys discussing football and wearing those stupid Rugby jerseys with false numbers on their backs. She had felt incredibly lonely there, 9pm at the local, drinking her second gin and listening to some song about roads winding and lights blinding behind the noise of drunken voices. She decided she was better off on her own, and left for the square, where she sat now.

It was late for the albatrosses to be flying around. Still, Margaret sat there and wondered what her life could have been like had she left the town for the uni. She had been sick of school, anyways, and no one she actually cared for was going after all. She had not found a job yet, and her savings from the summer camp thing were running out. And here she was, she thought, sitting at the local Uni's campus square, trying to figure out why she had left her mates drinking at the pub and had decided to come here on her own instead. The sky stopped being friendly as she thought this and some drops of rain took her out from her daydreaming. She cursed in silence as she doubted about standing up or just staying there, what the hell, and get drenched with some harmless English summer rain.

¨We are going to the town¨, she thought, and stood up. She began walking to the bus stop, then she ran, and as soon as she got to the transparent protection of the shelter the whole sky broke down in violent and unexpected rain. The bus would take some ten minutes to come, if it was on time, which was kind of unlikely. There did not seem to be anyone around. Margaret sat and closed her eyes, listening to the rain hit the plastic. For a moment, there was nothing on earth but her and the drops of rain, and the sound of solitude. She thought of water, and clouds, and cold, and vast skies. The loud roaring of the bus brought her back to reality. She put her coins on the tray, murmured "City center" to the driver and rushed to the back of the bus.

Margaret rested her head against the window. She drew imaginary landscapes with her finger on the steamy and cold plastic, took her headphones out from her backpack and closed her eyes again. There was no one else on the bus either, but she did not seem to notice until the bus got into town. The rain had ceased but the roads still looked deserted. Shops were closed, but their signs outside remained on, glistening with a spooky spectral light that was reflected on the wet stones on the floor. Margaret got off the bus on the market stop. "At least I may be able to get some chips at this hour”, she thought.

A black bird flew very close to her head and descended into the fountain to drink some water. There was some strange buzz coming out of the McDonald's neon sign. There seemed to be no other sound, but she could not realize it because she still had her headphones on. Every shop in the market was closed. Margaret walked through the empty hallways like a lonely ghost, wandering without any sense of direction. She took her headphones on and stopped. She was grabbing her bag very tightly with her left hand and holding her head with the other. She looked up and down. She sighed, and left the market towards the town hall and the library. She began singing quietly, as in the lullabies her father used to sing to her, with louder volume at first, and then, gradually, turning into a very silent murmur. It was as if her voice could have been heard miles from there. Some other birds flew off some trees next to the Anglican Church. The gravestones were still there, Margaret thought, as quiet and still and muddy and forgotten as this town. She checked her watch. It was only eleven, so pubs would just be calling last orders. As she looked at the time, a strange and piercing shiver ran through her spine. She had never felt as lonely as then. She felt small, very small, as if she was the last person on earth, as if everyone had fled to another planet and she had been left behind.

Margaret sat in the stairs of the library, waiting for someone to pass by. But only minutes passed, and her stomach made funny noses, and she was getting cold with only that tee shirt on. She found herself there, all by herself, sitting on the steps and not going anywhere. She thought of herself as a ghost, as the last, abandoned specter in a cursed town. The sound of silence was all there was to hear. Even the trees stopped moving. Margaret sat there, holding herself tightly, with her arms crossed. The city center was full of lights but there was not a soul to be seen. Margaret looked at her hands fixedly, expecting them to get as transparent as air, but they did not. She pinched herself to see if she was dreaming, but it hurt, and she did not wake up.

Margaret sat in the stairs, which were still wet from the brief rain. It was England and it was summer. She did not have anywhere to go and waited for something she did not know. She felt alone and small, very small, like a particle of dust in the immeasurable universe. She felt like she had disappeared from the face of the earth, but on second thought she realized it was everyone else who had just vanished. She stood up and started walking back home, trying not to think much about it. In the distance, a lonely dog barked, and a full, round moon appeared behind the thick, gray clouds.