A moment of retrospection

There is a girl in a red dress standing at the far left of my Aunt Nicole’s wedding photo. All of the women are wearing the same color, but her dress is different, with wide shoulder straps and a fully covered chest. There are four other attendants to my beautiful Aunt in white, and each of them has had their hair styled in an elaborate up-do for the occasion. The girl on the left wears her hair down, and the wind has caught it. Her hair is the color of sodden straw and it blows back behind her like a sheet. Her hands are holding a single white flower, and are encased in long white gloves. The entire outfit is meant to make her look like a miniature grown up, but not a real one. In a few years, this girl will be too pretty to stand at the far left. This girl will be on her dirty knees in torn fishnet stockings on hard gravel in the Florida Everglades, and she will be drunk and giggling, and there will be piss on the ground behind her. But not now. Right now, the girl on the far left wears her spotless white gloves and holds the flower that her Aunt in white gave to her, and her hair billows back into the wind, and she looks into the camera like she’s never seen it coming.