Even though I was stumbling repeatedly the rythmic sound of my steps echoed in the cold air as tears were flowing through my face. I, who had shed only tears of sadness until today, could not believe that I shed tears of happiness today. I wanted to dance in the streets as if I was crazy. But I was so hungry that I knew I could only run for a few more minutes. I slowed down and sat on a bench with a full view of the city.
I started to watch people’s cold and emotionless faces, their fast walking, hundreds of lights shining brightly in tall buildings. I thought to myself how people had changed while I was gone. The fact that these people were unaware of how free they were, that they didn’t know that they had everything I wanted to have in life, stabbed into my heart like a dagger, and the hot feeling of my tears started to burn my cheeks again. Now I was free too. “Now I’m just like you!” I wanted to shout to the faces of all people. I wanted the world to know that I was here, standing alone. I was too immersed in my thoughts that I didn’t even notice that a girl came near me. This girl, obviously a student who had bought a sandwich from a corner kiosk, must have heard my stomach rumbling, that she offered to share the sandwich. I would not normally accept but I was so hungry that I immediately accepted. She gave me a small smile as she ripped the sandwich off and handed it to me. This girl with a smile in her eyes looked so familiar to me from somewhere. When I took a bite of the sandwich and lifted my head to say thank you, she was already gone.
I looked around but no one was there. While I continued to eat the sandwich, I stood up and began to walk, rubbing my feet on the floor and staring at the dust. The people passing by were looking at me so scathingly and strangely that I stopped rubbing my feet on the ground, thinking they were bothered by the dust coming out. As I was passing by a market, the candy floss on the shelf caught my attention. I wanted to buy one so much . I put my hand in my pocket to check if I had money. There was nothing. There was not even a coin. The two men sitting in front of the market looked at me and one of them said, “Poor woman. The candies’ll get stale soon anyway, I guess she wants one, I think we should give one of them to her.” Even though I heard what they said, I pretended not to hear and turned around and started walking away. Even when the men shouted for me to stop, my pride was hurt, I didn’t stop.
But at that moment, someone other than the men shouted “Don’t…don’t budge an inch”, and I, who knew these voices well, stood where I was, as if my legs were tied. At that moment, I realized that I would not be able to cry of happiness again, and I let myself be in the arms of the men who came to pick me up and take me to the place I knew well. The last words I heard before getting on the car that came to take me were by the men standing in front of the market which were, “She escaped from the mental hospital, luckily we didn’t give her candy floss, she might have done something bad.” While these painful words of them were echoing in my brain, I looked at the moon one last time and whispered to myself, “I was free, even if it was for a few hours, I was free.”