Hazel

  If ever there were a new soul, she would be Hazel.  Her entire existence, perpetually confounded by the complexities of life.

  Time after time, her naiveté crashed headlong into situations that were incomprehensible to her young mind.  The minutiae, the niceties that cloak the real, the subtleties and switchbacks of this dance of life, always just out of reach.

  Guileless, she searched always for the unpretentious, the straightforward, the simple.  Yet as if a ploy by some outside force, she was continually tossed into evermore perplexing circumstances.  

  So, sad to say, Hazel’s life was peppered with confusion.  And, her gullibility made her an irresistible mark for Rita, who was naught to pass up an opportunity to send Hazel on another journey to nowhere.

  Just the other day…

  ‘Would you please stop yammering?!’ snapped Estelle.  ‘None of us can make a move without you telling everyone what we’re doing!  Who the hell are you anyway?’

  Startled that she heard me, I confessed, ‘My name is Zoe.  I’m the author of this story.’

  ‘Like hell you are, Zoe...whoever!’ she blustered, scanning her bedroom for evidence of me.  ‘I’m the author of my own damn story and I’ll tell it however I want, thank you!’  And with that, she drifted back into a deep slumber as I hightailed it out of her room.

  Moving back to the living room to continue my story, I came upon Rita and Hazel sitting by the fire.