Making Changes
By Rebecca Brown

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She was tall, but not too tall; wide-eyed but never innocent. Spending time with her was taking your life in your own hands, once you’d met her, though, you craved her company.

When she died her hair purple, then shaved it off completely, nobody was surprised; least of all her parents. When she had a skull tattooed onto her thigh and it got infected, her Mum didn‘t bat an eyelid. She was a walking contradiction, out to change the world. We were all a little bit in love with her.

Recently, she shocked me for the first time. I was back home, visiting family, when I saw her. Greasy, brown hair curled around her shoulders, lank curls silhouetted against her neon tracksuit top. She was pushing a double pram with two screaming children inside. She looked tired, a little bit too pale.

To some people, she might be a failure; maybe even to herself. Not to me though. She set out to make a difference and she did. Not a big difference, mind. She probably didn’t change the world, never created that new world order she talked about, but she was an example, a trail blazed through our lives. No, she didn’t change the world but she changed me.

 

 

BIO: Rebecca L. Brown is a British writer. She specialises in horror, SF, humour, surreal and experimental fiction, although her writing often wanders off into other genres and gets horribly lost. For updates and examples of Rebecca’s work, visit her Twitter page @rlbrownwriter or her blog Bewildering Circumstances ( http://bewilderingcircumstances.blogspot.com/ )

 

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