The girl sat on the park bench staring into oblivion like she had nowhere to be when Ryan found her. He was jogging down the ragged trail that wove through the trees. It was so familiar to him that he knew each hole and knob he had to avoid, each worn shoulder and each root that had broken free of the concrete. He knew her just as well, her hair resting at her shoulders in wispy strands of blonde that looked like gold on sunny days. Her frail hands that sat on her lap, her skin so pale that the veins were clear through her skin even feet away. Her eyes that didn't leave the ground, the roots that tangled at her feet.
She never moved. She sat in the same place every day, as if a statue that hadn't begun to decay. He always ran past her as if he didn't see her, but he did. He saw her, even though he knew she hadn't seen him.
Today seemed different. The sun shone a little brighter, and she looked a little less still. Ryan stopped, his inner breaks working so fast that he stumbled. She stared at him before looking back down blindly. He realized she wasn't really looking at anything. And he sat down.
"Hello." He said, but it sounded like a question. She didn't say anything back.
The next day Ryan sat down again. The sun was hiding behind a cloud, and her skin looked gray. She was a statue. She was still, frozen in time. She wore the same flowered dress, the same expression.
"I'm Ryan." He told her. The wind blew her hair away from her face, and Ryan seemed to think he could see a Mona Lisa smile upon her face. He went on for days, talking to her without her response. He was reaching out for her, and she rewarded him with that small smile every day. Every day she seemed more real to him.
Ryan went running in the pouring rain on a Sunday evening in hopes of seeing her. She was there, the twilight giving her the appearance of a surreal ghost Ryan paused, pushing the hair off his forehead. Something told him that this was wrong, and everything fell into place for him.
"It's too late." He said aloud. To Ryan she faded back into the statue state he had found her in. When he touched her shoulder gently she was cold and hard.
Ryan realized she was a work of art. She never had life at all.
ic-v/
