Seannine Henderson

Fool's Gold

I don’t remember the first time I was standing in this place, but I remember the second. The sun had set, and we had just eaten dinner as a family in the ornate dining room of the grand, white-stone villa in the leafy borough of Annely that I used to – and, sometimes, accidentally, still – call home. I was late to dinner that night. I couldn’t bring myself to leave the balcony that was in my bedroom. Couldn’t bring myself to leave the sight of the city sprawling before me, with its endless valley of white-bricked houses and buildings, its year-round lush green grass and palm trees, the lavender-scented balmy evening breeze, and its cloudless blue sky, shattered by the molten gold of the setting sun and hues of pink. It was heaven, a moment so perfect and serene that it seems only logical that the moments to follow it would be so exceedingly hellish, if only to even the scorecard.