Anna
Anna’s laughter spreads throughout the circle and infects everybody. For a slight second we all become a beautiful chorus. Anna continues to show us pictures of when she was “Pretty”. As she displays them one by one, we all try to convince her that she looks as good now as she did then. She then begins to flip through pictures of her friends, family and dearest memories.
She pulls out a card and opens it. As she begins to silently read the writing her free hand comes up to her chest, holding her heart. We see her expression change from joyful to sad, giving her the look of a grieving family member.
“Where’s my vodka!” She cries looking around. Everyone is surprised by this sudden outburst but recover quickly to tell her that she already drank it. Anna responds with a feeble “oh”.
She turns her attention back to the letter in her hand. As tears start to collect in her eyes, she explains that it is from a close friend who at one time took Anna into her home and saved her life. As she starts to read the letter out loud, the collected tears overflow and run down her cheeks. She continues on, a lump in her throat, stopping occasionally to explain something to us.
At one point she seemed to have controlled her emotions but this was only passing and soon she was gripping the letter tightly unable to speak. Finally, she was able to tell us that she had caught her friend using drugs and because she cared so much had reacted very angrily towards her. She explained to us these feeling and her reason for exploding. “Sorry” covered the pages along with “I love you” and words of encouragement. The letter told Anna to keep seeking her dream and, as she explained to us, her friend believed she could do it. She went on to tell us that she has always wanted to be on "Saturday Night Live" since she was a little kid.
Before she could say more, wet dots started to form on her letter and out of habit Anna let out a loud curse word. Once she realized what she had just said, she covered her mouth and with wide eyes apologized to us.
We began to help her put her memories back into her suitcase before the rain had a chance to engulf them. As she zipped it closed the rest of the group joked about how Hawaii was entering the rainy season and that they would now be able to take showers on the weekends when their usual places were closed.
After some last minute chit chat, a few more laughs and some “good byes”, we left our shelter under the tree and ran through the rain towards our bus, leaving waving hands and fading voices behind us.
