"Cynthia"

She hovers on the periphery of life. A quiet girl, a little bit strange, a little bit
pretty, keeping herself to herself. She sits near the bus stop – not right there, because she doesn't want to confuse the bus driver, she isn't going anywhere. She has a park bench to herself, sometime just past twilight. And she tastes the salty, spicy smells of takeaway food, she watches with a quiet longing as groups of people come and go. She notices their laughter, and the way they move along together, arms around each other, jostling and teasing and living.

She doesn't have anywhere to be, but she's not quite ready to move yet, either. Home, almost visible, just beyond the next row of houses. A light will be on in one window, solar lights set neatly along the garden path will guide her landing. Soft, mahogany-dark hair, tidied into a four-way braid, left to trail over one shoulder. Dressed in white. Dressed in autumn pale brown. She shrugs her owl-feather shoulders against a brief touch of wind, smoothes her dress over her lap.

A brief nod from a stranger. Both forgotten by morning.

Not quite yet, but she will go home. To the little flat she shares with her sister, where they'll eat their dinner in silence at the table.