Under the Cloak of Darkness

An assignment from Writing Class. Take a location and build a short story around the setting.

She opened the window up wide. It was the darkest time of night, the moon shining down emitting a glow on the park outside.

She loved this time of year: the first snowfall. Although rare in London, it made it that much more special. You could almost smell the crispness in the air; and that cloak of silence that seemed to be draped over the city made everything feel like a fairytale.

She leaned her arms onto the windowsill and glanced around the park. Usually a busy spot with people rushing to and from meetings, or the hospital employees dashing out for a smoke break, loved ones taking a minute of solace outside Great Ormond Street Hospital. The complete quiet only interrupted by the hum of a bus passing by.

She couldn't believe it's been three years. Three years of restless sleep, of looking out that same window, of searching the park, trying to find answers.

It wasn't so long ago she was that person sneaking outside the hospital in the dead of night. Wrapping herself up in one of the overused thin hospital blankets and trying to catch her breath. She never realised how suffocating hospitals could be.

It all seemed so bittersweet really. Getting the call those years ago - her mother had been found. The mother they thought they had lost had been found: disoriented and unsure who she was or where she was from, but alive.

She’d always wanted that relationship with her mother that she saw in the movies. When the little girl is sad, the mom scoops her up in her arms, her soft jumper brushing against the little girls tears. The mom would wipe them away and as the little girl caught her breath, she’d breathe in that sweet perfume that smelt like home.

But she wasn’t that little girl. And her mother never comforted her when she was sad, or told her everything was going to be alright.

No, her mother left under the cloak of darkness one night, leaving them alone with their workaholic father. So upon getting that call, she thought there was a second chance for them.

But of course, this woman didn’t know who they were, or why they were here, and why the hell did they keep calling her mom?

Mother checked herself out the next day, snuck off when the doctor was on rotation.

So now, she still sits here, breathing in the crisp cool air, looking, searching, wondering.