Car

She is new to this country. She feels like she is opening her eyes for the first time in her life. She is eight years old and everything around her is bright and cheerful, lively, not blank.
The music is beautiful. Business signs are alive during the day and the night. Different cars have different sounds.
Her favorite walks to school so far have been the early spring frost mornings. They exhilarated her. The pain of the icy breath piercing her lungs was just right to be pleasurable.
And people have arms! Sometimes attached to all kinds of sleeves, sometimes bare. It seems almost naughty when she is caught staring too long.
Her parents have chosen a quiet community, over the dense populated cities where most immigrants go. They are well-educated, with the money to be able to do this.
Her parents do it for her. They know Toronto and Victoria could make them maybe millions as the professionals they are. Small towners make less. Mom is still not working. Their wealth permitted them a house in a small town, not for the opening of practices. They researched communities before they came to our country and from the list of what sounded best and what had job offerings, they went with their gut.
They feel delighted about their choice since the first day they moved here. Their daughter smiles and her classmates find her most interesting. She is still a quiet girl, but her eyes are so bright.
There is not one doubt in their mind they have saved her from a lifetime in their old country. They know they have given her the best chances in the world for her dreams to come true all because they were lucky enough to choose a small town in Ontario, Canada.
They have done everything for her since she was born.
They used to be young and reckless. They were alive with life. Then they became comfortable and married. When she came along, she reminded them to fight.
They took a look at their world again through their new eyes and saw the same things as when they were college students. Hatred. Oppression. But this time they had money.
This time, they saw a chance to stay and fight it. Or they could flee it.
They love her and thank her for this gift of re-opening their eyes. They flee it. So she will never have to fight. It is their thank you.
Their world is hers.
She is outside playing now.
It is time to get back. Even though it is early. The coming rain will make the night appear quicker. She is around two corners from home.
She is skipping down the side of the road with her new pink and yellow twine skipping rope.
She sees the weeds poking out of the cracks in the curb. They amaze her and she looks for every one along the way. She can smell the rain coming. It will be a soft drizzle, she knows already, the smell. She would never forget the first time she was aware if it.
Something makes her look up.
It is that yellow car. She has seen it before in the deep reaches of her mind, back so long a go, she does not know when.
But she knows why it is here today.
She looks up at the grey clouds, wishing they were dark enough for a thunderstorm if this was to be her last moment. She has never seen it before.
She smiles softly to herself and decides the electrical wires attached to their weathered poles against the concrete sky are just as enjoyable. They have never been seen in this light.
She closes her eyes.
She was beautiful.