Beginnings

‘Each ending is a brand new beginning’ the billboard read. ‘honestly you’d think there’s a limit to the saccharine-sweet goodness people have the audacity to make up.’ Shelly cried out in dismay to the empty street and paused for an answer. Endings aren’t exciting, jubilant and triumphant beginnings, they’re merely a substantial form of an escapist reality. A way to find shelter. A way to hide from mind-numbing monotony. Sometimes, endings are just inevitable, they need to happen for everyone to move on, for everyone to escape from the carcass of an incomprehensible wreckage.

Shelly trudged on, it was raining and the water droplets fell in an elegant harmony that felt like a stained-glass picture of intense perfection. The only thing that marred it's beauty was the street filled with dirt, worn bags and rubbish. Shelly could ignore it on most days. She could pretend to be at home, with three children, a husband and a dog. But not today. Today was different. It felt bitterly painful and she desperately wanted it to end. Today felt like a sudden note of finality in her dreary life, like a triumphant end to all the obstacles she encountered in life, all the problems, all the failures and all the endings.

She wanted to go to see river Thames, the river that was home to a distant nostalgia that Shelly cherished. Before everything fell apart and all her emerald dreams faded to grey ashes she had gone there with her family. She had been there only once, in her childhood, and as a result Shelly had no memory of it but she knew that the water must be beautiful. She decided to do it and to finish the journey and complete it, once and for all. She wanted to end the constant suffering, the wretched loneliness and the stifling sorrow.

Shelly walked along the dirty, polluted and filthy street. She lived here. But in her mind she lived in a nice house, with her three kids, a husband and her dog. Oh, the fantasy of it all was not just achingly perfect but had become her only means of keeping sane. They all would be happy, they’d be a brand of exclusively cheerful optimists, ones who believed that each ending was a brand new beginning. And most importantly they all would go and see the river at every weekend. It would be a trip they all lived for and cherished.

The rain made it hard to see and the decreased visibility annoyed Shelly. She still ploughed on though, and she knew that she would get there soon. The river was easy enough to locate as every signpost led her to it. Shelly walked alone, but she wasn’t lonely though, in her head she was surrounded by her family. They all laughed at the comforting normality of their lives and found meaningful solace in each other. Suddenly she was brought back to earth by the sound of chocked sobs, and looking around she saw a young girl. Shelly felt a stab of sympathy but decided to move on. She had to go to the river, she couldn’t let her past down. Shelly walked on with strengthened resolve but haltered when the crying girl met her eye.

For a moment she forgot about everything. Instead Shelly remembered how she had been just like that girl. Left alone to fend for herself at sixteen, after her aunt threw her out. The clichéd stories are often the most personally terrifying. No one stood by her. Shelly had also once sat down and cried, comforted only by empty streets, whispering winds and gallant cobblestones.

‘But now it was going to change’ Shelly thought. she would go to the river. She would look back at her glorious past, and would be surrounded by a vista of memories and her old self, one not marred by harshly cruel realities, would come back to her. Shelly wanted to escape from everything. She wanted to end the constant stream of sorrow and dismay that had encaged her and engulfed her since the day she was welcomed by the streets.

Shelly took a final turn. There it was! The river looked hauntingly picturesque and welcomed her with open arms, Shelly could almost hear the happy laughter of her children beckon to her as she walked towards the river. She felt transfixed by its beauty and climbed up the railings. Shelly looked down as her old self smiled back at her. The river was a beautifully perfect end. She felt nervously excited and eternally hopeful as she smiled and took it all in. This was a world she belonged to, away from worn out streets and a sense of conflicting despair that, no matter what, would never cease. But this was perfect! This was a brand new beginning filled with glory and warmth! Shelly smiled took the leap as her heart filled with awe and hope. Each ending really was a brand new beginning.