One word

If you could choose one word to describe yourself, what would it be?

One word.

Pain.

Green.

Blur.

Headache.

Beach.

Number.

Nine.

Twelve.

Go.

Stay.

Pink.

Tired.

Death.

Keyboard.

Forgetting.

Love.

Passiveness.

Why?

Paper.

Shut.

Hope.

Hunch.

Bright.

Smile.

Nothing.

"That's an interesting list," murmured the teacher. She glanced at the girl, the girl who sat with such a vacant face and asked, gently, "What does it mean?"

"Everything I feel," said the girl. She still stared straight in front of her. Another man came over, a fat, prosaic-looking unemotional man.

"It doesn't make any sense." he said flatly, and looked suspiciously at the girl. "Are you trying to make a fool of us? In any case," he continued without waiting for an answer to his obviously rhetorical question, "we asked for only one word."

"One word can't describe me. Even that list didn't, " said the girl, imperturbable. "I need years and years before I can do justice to the question."

The man turned purple. The teacher intervened, trying to defuse the strange situation. "Alright dear, go out and play now." She glanced at the man next to her, now a dull red and striving to formulate an appropriate reply. She was sure that reply would be completely mundane and didn't bother to wait for it. "I'll go after her."

The girl was sitting, watching the others play. "Don't you want to play with them, darling?" asked the teacher quietly, sitting down next to the girl. "Or do you prefer a doll?"

"I would like a doll. A golden-haired doll with purple eyes and a rosebud mouth and wearing a blue-checked gingham frock with little peep-toe sandals."

The teacher hesitated. "I'll check if it's there in the toy store." she said eventually.

"Don't bother. It isn't." replied the girl, never turning her head.

"The teacher stared at the back of her palely brown head, unsure of what to say. In a rush of emotion she said, "Is there anything you want, sweetheart? Anything I can do?" But she was sure there wouldn't be. Children like these were hard to fathom - they were broken, bruised, battered, most of them lost in some world of hurt and darkness, never coming out. She was aware she could do only so much for them, a pitiful amount compared to what ought to be done. What she tried to do but never could in a million years.

But then the girl replied, "Yes, I want a mommy." And for the first time looked at her directly with those black little eyes of hers, eyes seemingly blank but not really. The teacher could see the difference between this girl who wanted to live, this girl with spirit, and the others who were no more than dully existing day after day.

She reached out and hugged this girl, this girl she could help, and whispered, naturally, easily, "I will be your mommy. I've always wanted a daughter just like you, sweetie." And the girl hugged her back, and sort of choked, and said, "I know." And they both looked up and saw the most beautiful golden sunset ever, with a tinge of blue and pink and purple and crowned with orange, and somehow knew that everything was going to be alright. Maybe not magically, in a moment, but still eventually alright.