In a courtyard She stood, Her hand curved towards Heaven while her ankle veered away from Hell making Her body a magnificent diagonal. Her veins were the thin lines of discoloration, and Her skin blended together thousands of shades years had gifted Her as Her yet formed body awaited to be carved. Her creator had imported Her and then chipped away until She had finally transformed from stone to woman. Upon completion, he gave Her as a gift to a family that found a place for Her in a courtyard next to their home, a mansion that had enough room for the neighborhood but whose seemingly impregnable doors stood tight-lipped, forbidden to reveal the secret of privilege. She remained there lonely and immune to the disparate waves of the city: the calm ebb and flow of the wealthy and the fierce crashing and tumbling of the scrambling poor. Her face, tilted downwards, stayed expressionless until he, Peter, gave Her one.
In a courtyard Peter stood, gazing at Her. His mother had left him there, had given him only a promise of her return, but, staring now at the figure in front of him, he found that he didn’t care much about her departure, return, or promises. In fact, he found that he did not care much about his mother at all. He sat with Her as the sun walked across the sky, and the moon began to inch in until his mother came back to reach for his hand and drag him away. He and his mother flew down cobbled streets, and he felt hatred stirring within him as he regarded her impatience, her perpetual need to move. Aggravated questions enveloped him, creating a storm of resentment, as his legs fumbled beneath him trying to match the speed of the long legs striding in front of them. Then, home: dimly lit, the cold riding upon thin air that swirled within. A plate barely covered in food sat in front of him as his mother let in the draft flinging open the door on her way out yet again.

He slept with his eyes wide open dreaming awake of ivory women and edenic courtyards. He rose for the sunrise, imagining a new life lighting out of the darkness of the night illuminated by the same orb that was currently dyeing the sky. His mother came out to retrieve him, and again they were rushing through the cityscape: storefrontsmarketstallsblearyeyedworkersconstructionsites and finally the courtyard. She stood gleaming in the ever-growing sunlight as the rest of Her sanctuary stood shaded by the trees fringing it. He didn’t even notice his mother had left, too entranced by Her presence. Sitting by Her, he asked Her millions of questions he had kept hidden in pockets his mother had been too busy to empty. She nodded along with him her pupil-less eyes filled with sympathy, Her lips drawn in concern. They parted to tell him that She was sorry and that, had Her arms not been so stiff, She would hold and embrace him. She listened to the anger with which he described his mother and the secret sadness that crept into his words. She sensed the trembling in his voice as he told Her about his friend Gabriel with his halo of blonde hair; a messenger to show by example that perfection is attainable. She saw his hands wring as he worried aloud about his future, telling Her of his reoccurring premonition of a life virtually the same as the one he currently led; a life full of chattering mice, stale bread, and dirty floors. On the days dark clouds arrived as Peter sat with Her, She would begin to cry, and for a reason, completely void of any malice, he was always glad of Her tears.

And then one day She was no longer there. Instead lay at his feet, mere pieces of Her, ruble, wreckage, and ruin. From the graffiti marker walls of the surrounding houses, he saw what had occurred, and almost as if he had been one of the perpetrators he saw how and why they had destroyed Her. Walking past Her every single day, they didn’t see Her as alive, but rather they saw the era in which She was born as alive. The era when they and their families starved while people living in ornate houses dined on succulent meat, drank burgundy wine, and laughed at the hordes of sufferers that filled their city rummaging through back alley dumpsters for a meal, their stomachs filled with only a deadly concoction of fear, anger, and a desire for vengeance. After the revolution, those people they had hated for so long had all already been run out of the country or killed, and so they turned to Her. In the middle of the night, they brought their sledgehammers and pickaxes and hacked at Her until only a pile of subtly sparkling marble was left. They all stood haughty, drenched in sweat over it, and chuckling they slowly let the violence that had propelled them abate and slink back into the dark corners of their souls. But, with its disappearance they soon felt a new sensation, one of confused unease, of terrible doubt. A realization dawned as they looked down upon the destruction they had wrought, of beauty shattered. Now emptied of the furor that had incited their frenzied rush to the courtyard, they walked solemnly home.

Peter looked down at their work. Despair momentarily seized him, bringing him down to his knees, forcing his hands to scoop up the dust of pulverized perfection and let it filter through his fingers. He stayed as still as She had been before he had saturated Her with life, and now waiting for someone to sit beside him, as he had sat next to Her, he tarried on the brink of waking.