JANE DOE #5501

Narration for a short film

By Garrett Gilchrist

I will build an ocean

and call it just a sea

I will build a fire

and say it's still a tree

I will build a two

and say it's less than three

I will build a you

and call it just a me

She died, I guess. That's what people want to hear. Another little story, Jane Doe #5001. I didn't know her. But I saw her. She was beautiful. She was walking. She was flying. She was walking and flying. She flew when she walked, you know. Not like a bird. Like a squirrel, like a can of paint, like a tennis shoe. She flew like a tennis shoe. I guess she flew like herself. Just skipping on that highway bridge, not caring if it was 89 degrees out and the lazy rough concrete might wear away her pretty little barefoot feet, I mean she really didn't care. She was laughing, I think. She'd just bought something and had it stashed away in a little paper bag. White. Handles on top. It wasn't that heavy. She tossed it over the side of the bridge. Maybe it was fishfood, I don't know. There must've been music playing somewhere, maybe just music in her head. Light brown hair, little green dress, big smile, hot day, paper bag, drivers passing by, screaming and swearing at the traffic, honking their horns and getting angry at the world and there she was, just a girl, walking along with a little skip in her step, flying a little bit. That's the way I saw her. I hope they saw her too. Traffic gridlocked, slow moving all around, she couldn't have been hard to miss there. I adored her instantly, I think. I don't know. I can't remember anything anymore. I heard the story later. I think it was a street punk, took her money, shot her dead, something. No one can ever really tell you the whole story when these things happen. I knew her. I didn't know her. I could've recognized her. I couldn't recognized her anywhere, you know? I can still see her in my dreams.

What people want to hear is another little story, girl in a little green dress shot dead in the city. No family, no one anywhere seeming to know her name. I don't know it. I didn't know her. But I saw her. I could've watched her for hours. She had nowhere to go, you know? And she was flying.

Jane Doe #5001. I guess.