The Life and Times of Serenity Joy
Dunnica Harps
She was a young girl with deep, dark, long, flowing hair that fluttered to her shoulders like freshly woven silk falling graciously in a growing pile, almost like a feather, slipping through the air as water down a steep slope.
Her large, quiet eyes looked though me and saw the rest of the world. These deep blue eyes looked past me to see children playing in the streets, golden whistles on the ground, trees with a few less leaves every spring and monster-size buildings defining the horizon.
In her soft, quiet voice she told me about her parents, who were once passionate lovers who were hardly ever lonely. Their nights were composed of unbridled ecstasy. And it was one of these nights in which this girl with deep, blue eyes and luscious hair was conceived.
Three fourths of a year later she was given a name: Serenity. They thought the world was perfect. Peace is perfect and their lives were so peaceful. Her middle name was Joy. They thought life could never get any better than what they had.
After a while they got bored with the wild love and the peaceful living. So they went their separate ways to discover for themselves what makes life tick. Serenity Joy stayed with her mother until her sixteenth birthday, when her mother, wanting to give her little girl freedom left the keys to a brand new Ford Escort on the kitchen table then took the Volkswagon bug out for a spin and off a cliff.
After the funeral Serenity ran away to San Francisco and ran into her father at a Dead concert. He at first didn't recognize her. The last time she had flowers in her hair was when she was three and he hadn't seen her since she was ten. But then he gave her a joint and she smiled and he realized who it was and snatched the joint from her mouth as she took another puff. He hugged her and she stayed with him until she finished high school with a C+ average.
She took a road trip the summer after that ended in a small, no-name town somewhere in the Bible-belt. That's where we met and where I became intoxicated by her dizzy life and whirlwind reasoning. It was there that she got word that her father, while conducting some business transaction in a back alley in Chicago was unfortunately killed by a knife that somehow got itself lodged in his back. I drove her to Chicago where she identified the body and conducted the necessary business involved in planning a quick funeral. It was here that we sat down and discussed life and why we're the way we are.
It was here that her blue, beautiful eyes looked through me and I realized that I could never love her. She couldn't love me either. She sits there and talks to me as she looks through me. And I look back at her and wonder what she'll do and where she'll go and who she'll see and if she has anyone besides me left above ground that'll follow her and at least try to love her so she won't be alone. No one should be alone.
This all happened yesterday. This morning I woke up to find her room was cleaned out. She left without a word, note, or sign. It's as if she never existed. As if she was never a part of my life, even though I still turn around when I think I see her in a crowd or down the street.
Some nights I can swear that I must have dreamt it all up, except for a lock of her deep brown hair a couple inches long that I keep in an envelope kept securely in a book of American poetry on the shelf next to the book of popular songs from the sixties that my dad gave me because he said the sixties were so perfect that nothing could be better.
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