PASSING CARS

I am standing on the corner, hesitant, waiting for the beauty that maybe will come for me. Vulnerable, perhaps, behind my black glasses and pearled ears, zits and braces. The cars whiz past me, carriages smoothly gliding, and I watch the people. I watch the men driving alone, the older girls with their shiny, straightened hair and perky breasts, the women barely visible behind piles of groceries, the older couples. I watch these people's hands. They clutch cigarettes, coffees, soda cans, each other.
I watch their faces, lined with sorrow and laughter, lined with makeup and the crusty remnants of sleep. I watch these people, these strangers driving by me, not seeing me, and I think how funny it is that they sit in their thrones of leather and vinyl, thinking they are alone, but there, there I am, watching them, trying to read their pasts, their presents, their futures, without tarot cards, thinking how odd it is to see human souls encased in glass and steel, private tragedies driving to some unknown destination.

Ranuga M. Reddy, 13, is an eighth grade student at International School, Dhaka