Cherry - part 6

Zia

Homecoming

Darkness surround her. If it were not for the well lit speed-o-meter, she wouldn't be able to see the cab driver. She knows he wants to talk with her. Everybody wants to talk to her. For her, it seems like the only thing she has been doing the last week.

Her brother, phoning her every day. Her father and mother phoning her once in a while, but seems too much. Everything is a little too much for her right now.

It doesn't help talking to the cab driver. She thought it would, but it doesn't. Talking never really helped. Maybe she's damaged.

“So how was Paris? I've never been there.” He says. He is mumbling, and it annoys her. Why does everyone mumble around her?

“It was rainy. It was cold. And sometimes it was a little warmer.”

They are again quiet, but the silence is awkward. He obviously wants to talk to her, and is struggling to choose a topic.

“Right... I was thinking more about your teaching job. How was that?”

She shrugs. It's an honest shrug. How was it anyway? She never really thought about it.

“It was good. The kids were good. Hard to leave them.” But it wasn't. It had not been hard to leave at all. She had been the outsider. She didn't speak french. Making a living in France and then not speaking french is harder than it should be. She was happy she was an english teacher. The kids knew english, and they were forced to speak english whenever she was around. They were fast learners, but it was an advance class, the same class she taught music. They never really cared for her, though. Yes, she was easy on the eyes, and she got by. But she didn't want to get by with her looks only.

“So what forced you home?” He disturbs her flow of thoughts.

“Nothing forced me, per se.” She says.

“A broken heart?” He guesses, and the guess makes her angry. Does she look like someone who just got dumped?

“No. Just... family business.” She explains, and agrees with herself not to get more into her whereabouts to the cab driver. He doesn't need to know a thing.

She starts humming. He seems scared to breathe.

And just like that, silence falls again, and within half an hour, they pull up to the house, the giant house she hadn't seen in a year. Didn't really change much.

So much like that home she used to know.

The cab driver carries her luggage out and says: “Goodbye miss Cryx. And good luck.”