Concrete angel.

I see the tiny birds flitting around in the sky, the blue tinge of it marked by mostly a darker shade of grey. The clouds are thundering above and the same birds, come swooping down trying to nestle themselves among the big leaves of the tree near by, in anticipation of the growing thunderstorm. I can hear the breeze that is now taking shape of a gale, rushing past me almost trying to uproot me from my spot. The tiny hairs on my gentle frame rise as goosebumps, knowing this is not a good day. But I have to stand. Stand as strong as the tree where the birds are huddled together, knowing I’m not as strong as them.
The gentle drops fall on my head and almost knocks me over. I regain my strength and stand back up again, while my surrounding kind look at me knowingly. I smile back, because this is what I know. Smiling is the only thing I have ever learnt to do. The only thing which helps me through. I brace myself for the stream of water that is going to start around me, so I plant my feet stronger on the ground. In the distance I see a group of men, standing together in long overcoats and hats and holding big umbrellas over their heads.
I watch them smoking their cigars, exhaling the smoke in tiny circles out of their cold mouths. I see one of them turn towards us and smile. So I smile back, as usual. He whispers something to his friends and they nod. The man stares at us long enough to make us uncomfortable about that stare. But we smile on, it has been ingrained into us. He starts walking towards us, singing a faint tune that I remember from one of the old men who used to hum the same, while talking to us. As he comes closer, his eyes shine bright and his smile widens to reveal a set of unaligned, yellowing teeth.
We smiled back and while we did that, he pulled one of us up.
“You are beautiful, the whole lot. Such good luck to run into you lot” he muttered under his breath and I knew what was about to happen.
One by one, we were all out and I was the last one stuck to my ground, hoping against hope I would be spared.
“Oh you don’t want to come with me?” He grinned menacingly while he stroked my body and one by one, he started pulling on my body parts. I was crying in pain from inside but there was no way I could tell him what I felt.
“Let’s play the love game, sweetheart” he talked to me.
“She loves me…she loves me not…she loves me…she loves me not” he started chanting this unusual poem. All this while, I had every limb taken off me.
“She loves me. Yes!” He was ecstatic after the last of my parts was stripped off of me.
“I don’t need you anymore, you’re useless and dry” he waved me off like a dry flower and left with the others.
But, I was a dry flower. I was the flower stuck in concrete, waiting for someone good enough to know that I wasn’t part of a game.