She's not someone hard to read. Essentially, if she was a book, you can read her entirely in half an hour.

She takes pleasure in simplicity. She likes to keep arguments and confrontations at bay. She despises hatred and humiliation. She advocates for respect and sincerity. More often than not, she only tends to see the good in people. And often...much too often, she views those she's close to in an idealised.....even perfect state.

She believed that there were genuinely good people in the world. Genuinely good.

However, this unrealistic notion began to unravel itself. The horror of the world slowly seeped in. She's been too protected, too niave, too innocent to realise the multidimensional layers of the human condition. Still, she felt like she has been acquainted with this reality, sometime long ago. The thought that humans tend to wearing different personas in certain circumstances, in ways that only benefited themselves, was definitely not a new notion.

Her family members tried to send fire drills long ago. Sounding the alarm sporadically so she could design her own evacuation route, so she could familiarise herself with working the fire extinguisher. Their voices overlapp each other like a continous chant in her head. Nevertheless, she managed to push it all somewhere to the back of her mind, inbetween the nightmares and the secrets.

She did not want to believe it. This could not be right. It could not be possible that everyone had a second motive to the way they do things, until a close friend woke her up.

"It's part of being human".

This revelation hit her harder than anything before.

She became overwhemlingly nervous and buried herself in long periods of doubt and mistrust of those around her. She only saw negativity, the cruelness of the world, the anger and frustration that life bought on people and the injustice that descended upon humanity like a plague.

Most days, she was paralysed with fear. Fear of the future and uncertainty about people in general. She doubted if loving someone for a lifetime was possible, if all the novels and movies were all lies, carefully disguised with elaborate romantic thematics to lure the ignorant.

All these things were uncharacteristic of her.

She tried to go about life as she always did. The usual routine of warlking the dog, working at the corner shop, swimming against the backdrop of an Australian summer sunset.

And then, she snapped.

The break off was slow at first but it was a clean cut, crisp, like separating a square piece of chocolate from the block.

The aftermath was messy, it involved numerous sessions of quiet reflection and free falling tears. Often, she found herself sketching by the water and paying weekly visits to the gardens.

She felt that time would finally lay her insecurities to rest.

Now she feels an odd notion of worn-out peace, like a old man with both frown and laugh lines around his wrinkled face.

But her spirit has been internally dampened. Marked by the rainstorm that had passed. She's determined to revive it though. Somehow.

She does not know whether to be glad or sombre.

The process of being human is quite fair in a way. The salt in tears will always be balanced by the sweetness you drink in from laughter.