Story of a forgotten Soul

I was quite influenced by Neil Gaiman when I wrote this. Don't get me wrong, I am not comparing myself to Gods, I am, mainly saying that I had read a lot of his work at the time.

My tale begins in late springtime. I believe it was in mid-May, for the air was filled with summer anticipations, and over-stocked bakeries, happy kids and all that is good when winter is gone and forgotten, and summer is right around the corner. 

A child stumbled and fell before me. It went a few seconds before he saw the small wound on his knee. Then, he started wailing. My features remained indifferent as the miniature person stood up and ran for his mother. It was not the first time the scenario played out in front of me, but something was different that day. There was a sensation of change. I could feel it in my stiff fingertips. I could nearly smell it with my grey nose, but I could not pinpoint what it was. I looked around me at the people near the town centre. Nothing seemed out of place. There was the shoemaker, setting up his stall, at precisely the same time as the day before, next to the pearl seller’s open tent, for the spring and the summer was a time of markets where I was from. There was the boy again, with his mother. He had gotten a small, brown package of loose hard candy and sweet liquorice from the young woman in the corner. Oh, how I longed for a taste of those! But I have never felt hunger, and so, I continued to search through the crowd of people for anything unusual. 

For the next few hours, life seemed to display itself like it always did before me. Children were playing, women were talking and dogs were barking. One of the dogs came over to me and sniffed my legs before he lifted his leg and sent a solid yellow stream to the seam of my sculpted clothes before its owner gave a wistle that led him to happily depart with me to follow the man loyally. I had no words for my anger. But again, my features remained indifferent. In my prime, I had been admired by everyone in the town. Now, hardly anyone knew who I was representing anymore. 

To study the life of those around me was a fascinating pastime and I have learned a lot about the world through studying them with the limited view I had. In my youth I often longed for contact with their world, other than receiving crap from pigeons or being pissed on by dogs and drunkards. I tried to reach out, but the women and men of this world was, and still is, deaf to my language. My heart, if I ever had one, became hardened like the stone I was created from as time passed. I saw lovers, and longed for their affairs. I saw merchants selling their goods, and wanted nothing but a taste from their apples, or to feel the cloth they sold upon my skin. I wanted to smell the baker's fresh bread that some women described so vividly. But it was no use. My senses are not made for human touch, smell or taste. 

I have seen lovers quarrel. Some go separate ways, but some few come back every day until one of them comes back alone, and I never see their hands entwined again. 

As I stood there in the Town Square, I could feel there was a change in the air. Soon came men with tools and carriages, chopping me down. As the mute I am, I could only watch as they cut into my beautiful marble features wanting me gone. As they put me on the carriage, I my eyes kept staring at the market, where I had stood watch for the past century and I could only do such as I knew I would never see it again. 

Although I said that my story began that day, the joyous day sometime in May, I might be mistaken, for I am old and my memory is fading and where they brought me I would not be able to tell you as I lie staring up into the grey air forsaken and alone, forever doomed, with rain falling down upon my dying face. 

Author's Note

I am always worried about the fluency of the work. Please do comment on it and I would be happy for comments on improvements or elements that doesn't make sense.