Goodnight Julianna

I  have always been good at being oblivious to the unnecessary – like the rain for example. This trait, I think, comes in handy especially when one doesn’t have anyone waiting for them back home. Until now.  But no matter how much I deem it to be an unnecessary act of kindness, I couldn’t help noticing the little girl with soiled clothes staring straight at me, like a deer caught in headlight or maybe it’s because she reminded me rather too much of my child. Dark eyes and an even more darker hair, clutching a ragged doll with its head twisted at an awkward angle, oh no, there is no way she could resemble my darling cherub. My little girl was a happy child with an innocence that befitted her age. A creature of light that loved and adored her mommy like no other.  Maybe life saw her as a hindrance to the unending cycle of the mundane cruelty that it found discarding her to be a viable option. Maybe.
    I don’t know why I switched off the engine and jumped out of the car like a madwoman. I don’t know why I almost ran through the badly lit street despite the gruesome rain and I don’t know why I hugged the child whom I barely knew and cared about. It was as if the walls I had sheltered myself in for so long seemed crashing or maybe it was one of those occasional episodes. For a moment the girl was hesitant, then with those thin, pale hands she embraced me with a familiar grace, tears staining both our cheeks..or maybe it was just the rain. Maybe.  Too engrossed was I in the moment that it took more than my usual time for  my cognitive abilities to grasp what she said next. Smiling I put her down, but she held on, it was as if she had me in a chokehold, “ It’s okay baby, you’re safe now”, I reassured her. But she held on. In a vice like grip. At that moment my mind which had abandoned me for the last ten minutes greeted me like an old friend and it was too late . I woke up  shivering and sweating profusely but never screaming. Next, I did what I usually do incase of those episodes, I searched for my little girl’s picture and found it inside the needle box, my little girl whom I shared with the man who meant the world to me, the man who sadly didn’t know that I don’t share. My little girl whom I killed five years ago. The door creaked and I found my little girl peeking through the curtains and I said what I used to say to her all those years ago, “ Goodnight Julianna”  
I tried not to scream but I did.
P.S