Beautiful madness

Chapter 2 - Amity and the Old flower

Beauty in madness

''There is beauty in everything, just not everyone sees it. ~Andy Warhol.

Chapter 1 – Amity and The Old flower.

I have always seen beauty in everything. It's out there in the morning when the sun is out – orange and warm against our sleepy town; it is out there when outside was grey, seemingly frozen in time, lifeless except for the billowing smoke coming from the chimneys. It is out there when a frightful storm raged, the winds pounding at my windows while the rain poured and thunder growled from the heavens.

It made me feel a little bad enjoying such a thing because I know not all were as lucky to have a safe house like I did. But then again, it was always easier to ignore these things and focus on what one likes, what one thinks and what one feels. After all, one cannot solve everything for everyone, right? And it's not like I could invite a perfect stranger inside my house and have him/her live with me with no cost whatsoever?

Maybe I could approach a poor man curled up in a dark alley and offer my help.

Maybe I could sit with a perfect stranger and offer him a cup of coffee.

Maybe I could. But I wouldn't.

My mother has made sure that I remember this. She said that I could forget everything else but not this. Kindness is a virtue, indeed. But not when it costs you your life, she says.

And thus, many times I have killed and buried my urge to help others. To repress my urge to give a miserable-looking person a small smile of comfort, or give them the spare coins I know I have in my pocket.

''Once you start. You cannot stop. They'll expect. And when you don't give it to them...My sweet Amity, I wouldn't even want to think of it.''

But one day, one grey and lifeless day, I saw an old woman walking through our old and cobble-stoned streets. I decided to skip my classes and spend the rest of my day in Mr. Portman's bookshop that day. He was a kindly and smiling aged man who lets young people such as myself to stay in his shop and just read. And I was proud to say that he was rather fond of me.

But this one woman looked way older than Mr. Portman. This one had her back hunched and she walked so painfully slowly that it took my everything to stop myself running down towards her to offer her my arm.

Sometimes I have no idea why they teach us all these manners if they won't let us use it for everyone.

I looked around, hoping and waiting for a brave one to approach the old lady. If she was a little cleaner and worn better clothes and none of those queer feathers and beads wrapped around her, one, two or many would come and save the day.

Saggy skin, moles of different sizes dotting her browned skin and her wide grey eyes, hazy, tired and teary (probably from the weather).

Also, the old woman didn't look familiar at all.

A stranger in town.

I stopped at the bus stop and pretended to wait for the bus beside some groups of huddling teenagers. They were busy playing with one of those ''in'' gamer-things. Game-boy? PSP? I'm pretty sure they were all the same stuff. I discreetly watched the old woman take increment steps towards my way. I bounced on my heels, frustrated.

I really cannot.

She was strange.

But what if she isn't?

I really cannot.

''...Look at that old woman,'' I heard one of the boys whisper failingly.

''Woah, how old you think that is?''