"So, what did you do yesterday?"
Anna stared out the window, fiddling with a napkin in her palm. Absentmindedly she replied, "I visited America."
The questioner was a man, sitting across from Anna at the small cafe table. He smiled, pushing his cup of espresso from hand to hand. "What do you mean, Anna? Aren't we in America every day?"
Just like she had thought, she realized disappointedly. He had a lack of understanding. A lack of imagination. She tried to remain calm and simple minded as she stated rather blankly, "I live here, but I haven't ever truly visited it here. I saw the ocean yesterday and I met it for the first time."
He seemed to ignore her as he went on about his work. She gave him a taste of his own treatment, standing up from the table and leaving the cafe. Had it been a mistake? Was the much anticipated fight she'd been afraid of scheduled for that night? Had her walking out of the coffee shop blemished her future? No, she decided, as she walked down the street that led back to her apartment.
It was a beautiful town. A tourist town, but it also had many natives. She was one of those natives. She would never hold her town close to her heart like New Yorkers did when they visited once a year. She'd spread facts at her job in a blatant manner, then head home with the same expression on her face. She'd even fall asleep each night feeling the same - dreadful and sick with loneliness. August was always ignorant at night. Dealing with the troubles of his job, she guessed, but he never spoke after getting in bed. She had decided long ago to never have a child. They couldn't even kiss anymore without her gagging, and how could they manage to raise a family with hate between them?
Of course, as a young girl, she'd always dreamed of having a loving husband and a big family, but then life had shown its disregarding truth. It didn't love her and it barred off its compassion. Realization was sharp as a thorn sometimes, yet she was able to grasp it and accept it. That was what had caused her actions the day before. Now, she could barely remember the thoughts she had experienced. They seemed out of place in her head all of a sudden.
As she turned left around the street corner, she could see a small house. It was under construction. A new build. It was cute and modest. She'd always wanted to live on that street corner, even when it was just an empty lot. She'd imagined a quaint cottage being placed there where she could raise a family with the loving husband she'd figured up. She couldn't live there with August, she knew now. It would ruin her dreams. It would show her unloved children how much of a failure she was.
As she was staring at the house, she became lost in her dreams, thinking up things that she thought would have once been cruel to think because of their unlikeliness of occurring. Now, possibility shone from every crevice of her small town.
The town was called Roseville. She had always loved it. From the sunrises to the sunsets, every aspect of it was beautiful. The ocean was only an added bonus. Of course, thousands of towns were perched on an idyllic overlook with sea as the landscape, but she had thought this particular place to be special. She didn't care much about the history, as she wasn't an historian and didn't plan to be one. What she really loved about it laid beyond that. It was a charm of sorts. The people were unique and tourists were always intrigued, but that first day when she was indeed a tourist was her favorite moment of discovery.
When she'd visited Disneyland in Paris, back when she was a young girl living with her grandmother, her mind had still been filled with that imagination. She had lived life in the most simple way, yet her sense of adventure had just began to rage within her. That was the first moment she had felt a moment of initial discovery. It wasn't a discovery of the park, but simply of the joy from within herself. She knew from there on out that she'd never be that overjoyed again.
