It is most definitely difficult to become acquainted with the he-said-she-said talk of a small town. It is most definitely difficult to become acquired to the who’s-wearing-what lifestyle. It is most definitely tiresome to live in this type of place. To compare it to one particular grey afternoon would not suffice, for the true hue of greyness would not be understood, the sadness of its sole existence would not be explained thoroughly.
The citizens of such a place are perfectly fitted to this particular way of life. No, only some of them are. Women walk around with this high entitlement like the grace of Aphrodite had personally touched them during infancy. Men strut and stride with the egos of famed persons on their shoulders. Streets continuously go hungry from the deprivation of cars driving about them. The sun goes without shining on residential children; they have all grown up drinking electricity through blinding screens that imitate sunlight but do not replace it. Did the tree branches rustle when preteens would climb them? How about water- did it splash when strangers would plunge into their neon blue depths? No one in this small town remembers and no one cares to traverse their memories to find out.
School lessons drone on into the mind-numbed youths, it has come to such a dull routine that the adults do not even convince themselves of their teachings. Was there a time when students were excited to carry their books home from a long day of activities? Colouring- was there a time when they coloured for fun instead of more credits on a miscellaneous assignment? No one in this town remembers and no one cares to traverse their memories to find out. No one but I.
I remember the tree branches rustling as my hands grasped for their rough bark. I remember the water splashing up into the air when strangers plunged into the cool relief. I remember the excitement that came with learning in school. I remember colouring for fun, and singing for fun, and dancing as if no one ever saw because did they, did they really see? Could they actually see me in my rawest form? I was different, everyone was different in this now very difficult to swallow, all too much the same small town.
The few whose minds become crushed by this village come close to ending their voices, silenced by the internal screams of difference. Yet no one notices. They are being extinguished by modern, smallville society. Sadly, that is the purpose of small towns; to swallow up the individuality that brings about difference and turn it into something similar. Brainwashed and refined carbon-copies of the latest trend walk down the empty streets with blank stares. Those carbon-copies try to turn me into a creature of trending, a creature of the now, a creature of modernness. I stand amongst them, crude and knife-like, dispersing this sameness that engulfs such small towns.