Mind Games

'What did I do wrong this time?' she said to herself as she sat by the river. She picked up a stone and threw it in the water, in frustration, anger, fear...she couldn't tell. She clutched the lovely dress to her bosom and cried.

'Why didn't he see? Maybe he didn't want to see, my pretty, pretty dress...nothing.'

'We're playing those mind games together,' the song played in her head.

'No, you are playing mind games,' she said sobbing.

But there was no one there to listen. She was alone.

'Perhaps that is better,' she said, drying a tear, 'then I don't have to guess what I am supposed to do, what I am supposed to be.'

'Why can't I just be me?' she cried out, not caring if anyone would hear her.

'Love is the answer and you know that for sure - Love is a flower, you got to let it, you got to let it grow.' The song went on in her head.

'Love is the key, love and trust,' she thought bitterly.

'One single word, one blasted little word of kindness, one little piece of certainty, of reassurance and she could have lifted the shadow, thrown away her fear, lifted the veil, one little word.'

He was disappointed, she knew that, disappointed and hurt. It meant a lot to him, that was true but it meant something to her, as well. Tears of anger welled up in her eyes. Why was she so angry? Wasn't she supposed to like it?

'I am not soulless and heartless,' she said out loud, paraphrasing Jane Eyre, her beloved heroine.

She knew the passage well, chapter 23, the best part of the whole book.

'Do you think I am an automaton? - a machine without feelings?'

And then later:

'I have as much soul as you – and full as much heart!'

She clutched her dress closer to her heart and cried. For it was, indeed a very pretty dress.

(Mind Games by John Lennon, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte)