A Wallflower, Maybe.

A flash of orange moving about the foyer was all she was to this college. Her smiles settled down on the people as though dusted from a bee’s wings. The woods and the conversations they held painted the thought bubbles that floated over her head as she walked barefoot inside confused socks. She was convinced that her life was created by a wandering mistress who knew not where she belonged. She was put there, upon the petals of a garden that smelled of passion by a dewdrop who compelled her to find answers. 

“What questions do I answer?” she asked, to which the dew replied, “Your own, including that one.”

She rests her head upon her knees and silently observes the land. She sees so much that she cannot leave a moment untouched. Everything is too precious and priorities are impossible to maintain. She keeps a log of everything she feels, hears, smells or sees- completely oblivious to how much she’s missing every time she puts pen to paper. She loves the world and wants it to embrace her- tighter and tighter every year, until one day, it smothers her and claims her as part of itself. 

But she fears the people around her and people as a race. And so she wonders if she should fear herself. She can’t decide whether to live within a giant bubble, buffering her from every distraction or whether to burst it, letting in the slightest beating of wings or pleasant humming- allowing them to saturate her senses, leaving no scope for her to move or assimilate. She wants to learn and read and study- as long as she lives- but she wonders if knowing so much would someday stop her from being fascinated by her surroundings. She wants a life of knowledge and wonder and can’t quite grasp whether they can survive in each other’s arms. 

So she falls asleep each night to the sound of the still air and the smell of her dusty curtains and the touch of her cat’s fur against her chest and surrenders to her dreams which she knows will amaze her more than her own imagination.