She was the least self-defined thing in the world. Practically nothing that had happened with her had been under her control. Once upon a time, she had been a coral swaying in the cradling arms of the tender ocean. After her death, she had settled, dried, became stiff and compressed. Then, for a long time — hundreds of millions of years — her calcium carbonate skeleton had been heated and crushed at a depth far from any living thing. She had emerged one day, and men with saws and chisels cut her free and sliced her up. Now she stood in rain and snow before the stone steps of Immaculate Conception Church. It wouldn’t be long at all, all things considered, before the wind wore her down into something new again. But she wasn’t self-defined and she didn’t control it for a moment.
Sometimes, the boys and girls from the school next door would hide behind the trees and kiss within her view, and this filled her with longing. Sometimes, drunks would kick over garbage cans or graffiti up the playground, and this filled her with futile anger. But sometimes… sometimes…
Sometimes, an old woman in a shawl or an old man in black would step out through the heavy oak doors of the church, sit down beside her, and mutter some words. They’d stop halfway through their prayer, and stare out into space, feeling broken, worn-down, blown about. “I know exactly how you feel,” she thought.