Reflection (art prompt)

She'd always hated the wind.

It was so pushy, so bossy, oblivious. It blew at her no matter which way she wanted to go, tugged at her clothes and hair, howled at her from far places and carried smells she'd sometimes rather forget. It thought it could force her to go certain places, and she hated things that assumed to have power.

Now, it whistled through the canyon, tauntingly, she thought, grabbing at trees and grass on its joyride. Its rough hands caught at anything it passed like a child gallumping through a park, stamping on ants and bashing any tree branch small enough. It echoed noisily, almost as if some raging beast danced madly below. She shivered.

Idiot.

His words floated back to her, clean and crisp as his shirts and sharp as his eyes. She remembered the rain, and the concrete, and chain-link fences and someone yanking out her eyebrow-ring. She remembered how the blood had poured into her eye and only tears had poured out. She remembered curling into a ball on the sidewalk, alone, as the downpour started. She remembered seeing the buisnessman, face hidden by an umbrella and hand carrying a second one, and she remembered asking him to borrow it. She hadn't expected to peer under the rim and see him.

Idiot. I'd have kept you, you know. You'd be warm and dry and safe right now. She had started to cry again and turned away, trying to disengage, but he was coming forward now. Your head's bleeding. Didn't I tell you you'd get into trouble? This is God, you know. God is raining on you.

God hates you. God hates you. God hates you.

He had looked her over: the combat boots and the ripped denim and her hair pulled back, and he had scoffed.

Look what you're doing to yourself. Just leave your face alone, alright? So God can see you suffer. She hadn't been able to formulate a response.

You can still be saved, you know. Come back to my house and get down on your knees and pray, and never touch another girl again. We'll take you in again if you repent to God and to us. You don't have to be a freak.

Still speechless, she'd managed to violently shake her head.

But you are. He'd spat on the ground, but the rain had washed it away.

Her hair was down now; it blew around her face and into her eyes like a shroud. She'd removed her earrings and cartilege rings and remaining eyebrow ring and her belly-button ring. She'd wiped off the eyeliner and left her denim jacket and combat boots behind.

The wind screamed.

God hates you. God hates you. Freak.

There was a pond below, to the side a bit, and the sunlight and the now cloudless sky flashed on the surface. Far, far below she could see her reflection, a lonely stick figure standing at the egde of a chasm.

God hates you.

Tears were welling in her eyes, and she couldn't tell whether they were spilling out. Her hair tangled and untangled itself over and over. She looked down. Her feet wobbled a little bit, and her heart raced. She hated the wind.

That was when it rushed at her. A sheer gale, shoving her backwards and onto her the ground as it rushed over her, pushing her back, back, away from the edge.

God-- loves you?

She sat in the starved grass and cried and cried and did not jump.

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