Vaguely, Christine remembers that she has somewhere to be, an appointment to keep...a job perhaps? She can’t keep it straight in her head. She has always been the type of woman to have her head up in the clouds, not that she can remember anything beyond her quaint little life in this idyllic little town.
And why would she want to? With bright rays of sunshine draping over everything to illuminate just how perfect it all is, she can’t imagine anything ever being better than this.
True, these perceptions might be a direct result of all that Joy but that matters little. Everyone takes it, Christine is more than content to live on in a vivid fantasy rather than even contemplate an alternative.
If she could remember, she’d know that reality has never really been her strong suit.
She bounces down the garden path, her long, dark braid swishing behind her with every step. As much as she has tried to tame her hair, it still escapes and frames her masked face with wild, curly tendrils. To anyone watching her, she is quite literally the perfect embodiment of delirious joy; The poster girl for why the drug is so important. An angel, heaven sent to compound the chemically-induced euphoria with the natural pureness of her voice. She sings to the flowers along the path, fully improvising a silly little melody with silly little words.
But at a bush full of white roses, she stops dead in her tracks. Their beauty throws her off kilter for a moment; their petals seem to have an iridescent shimmer and it takes her breath away for reasons she can’t explain.
White roses are important to her, she can’t remember why, only that they are and how strange it is to forget something so simple about herself. She moves on from the thought rather quickly and reaches out to pick one of the blooms. She tucks it into her hair and decides that she needs another. By the fourth flower, it looks like she wears a crown of roses. When she too eagerly reaches for the fifth, she tears her finger on a thorn. Christine pulls her hand back at the pain with a surprised squeak. Her finger slides between her lips as she soothes the small wound with her tongue. With the blood wiped away, she examines the little cut. Hardly anything at all.
She looks back to her roses and something seizes her chest. Blood, dripped onto one of the flowers, painting the white petals. A white rose turned red. Her heart sputters and Christine remembers.
There’s someone that she loves. Someone she misses with every fiber of her being, a missing piece of her soul. It strikes her with such force that she nearly falls backwards. Oh, this love! What a thing to be celebrated...if she could remember who exactly it is that holds such a claim to her heart. She tries to concentrate, searching her mind for a name, a face, a voice...but there’s nothing.
She steps away from the bush, patting down her pockets in search of the little pill bottle that will bring her solace from this revelation. With shaking hands, she pulls out the bottle and fumbles with the top. If only she could manage to take her Joy, the strangely unpleasant revelation of a missing lover would dissipate.
Instead, she winds up dropping the pills on the ground. The pink capsules scatter across the cobblestones. Christine drops to her knees and picks each of them up, one by one. As she places them back in their bottle, she notices that her finger has not quite stopped bleeding yet. She mutters under her breath in frustration, wrapping her sleeve around her hand before resuming her pill pick up.
She still hasn’t noticed the mysterious stranger looming nearby.
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And why would she want to? With bright rays of sunshine draping over everything to illuminate just how perfect it all is, she can’t imagine anything ever being better than this.
True, these perceptions might be a direct result of all that Joy but that matters little. Everyone takes it, Christine is more than content to live on in a vivid fantasy rather than even contemplate an alternative.
If she could remember, she’d know that reality has never really been her strong suit.
She bounces down the garden path, her long, dark braid swishing behind her with every step. As much as she has tried to tame her hair, it still escapes and frames her masked face with wild, curly tendrils. To anyone watching her, she is quite literally the perfect embodiment of delirious joy; The poster girl for why the drug is so important. An angel, heaven sent to compound the chemically-induced euphoria with the natural pureness of her voice. She sings to the flowers along the path, fully improvising a silly little melody with silly little words.
But at a bush full of white roses, she stops dead in her tracks. Their beauty throws her off kilter for a moment; their petals seem to have an iridescent shimmer and it takes her breath away for reasons she can’t explain.
White roses are important to her, she can’t remember why, only that they are and how strange it is to forget something so simple about herself. She moves on from the thought rather quickly and reaches out to pick one of the blooms. She tucks it into her hair and decides that she needs another. By the fourth flower, it looks like she wears a crown of roses. When she too eagerly reaches for the fifth, she tears her finger on a thorn. Christine pulls her hand back at the pain with a surprised squeak. Her finger slides between her lips as she soothes the small wound with her tongue. With the blood wiped away, she examines the little cut. Hardly anything at all.
She looks back to her roses and something seizes her chest. Blood, dripped onto one of the flowers, painting the white petals. A white rose turned red. Her heart sputters and Christine remembers.
There’s someone that she loves. Someone she misses with every fiber of her being, a missing piece of her soul. It strikes her with such force that she nearly falls backwards. Oh, this love! What a thing to be celebrated...if she could remember who exactly it is that holds such a claim to her heart. She tries to concentrate, searching her mind for a name, a face, a voice...but there’s nothing.
She steps away from the bush, patting down her pockets in search of the little pill bottle that will bring her solace from this revelation. With shaking hands, she pulls out the bottle and fumbles with the top. If only she could manage to take her Joy, the strangely unpleasant revelation of a missing lover would dissipate.
Instead, she winds up dropping the pills on the ground. The pink capsules scatter across the cobblestones. Christine drops to her knees and picks each of them up, one by one. As she places them back in their bottle, she notices that her finger has not quite stopped bleeding yet. She mutters under her breath in frustration, wrapping her sleeve around her hand before resuming her pill pick up.
She still hasn’t noticed the mysterious stranger looming nearby.