Mary Anne
Sample essay
The gaunt figure that inched its way slowly towards the medicine counter looked old and haggard.
Her dreary-looking outfit did nothing to conceal her bleak and depressing demeanour. Anyone who looked at her would have thought she carried the world’s burdens on her shoulders.
Quietly, she sat on one of the chairs and waited patiently, like the rest of us, for her number to be flashed on the digital screen.
I was rattled. I knew I had seen her somewhere before — a younger, happier version. There was no way I could be wrong. Like an arrow released from its bow, the buried and forgotten memories pierced my heart with an unknown intensity.
It had to be Mary Anne, my best friend in secondary school. Then again, this person looked old, much too old to be 29. Anyway, I summoned enough courage and went towards her. Hearing my footsteps, she looked up slowly. The flash of recognition in her eyes told me I was not wrong.
“It is you, Mary Anne Danker, is it not?”
She nodded her head silently as if embarrassed.
“Hello, John? You are looking good.”
Her remarks reminded me of how beautiful she had been once. Mary Anne had been the school beauty. Everyone had admired her for her looks, her brains and her beautiful character.
Many had said, rather enviously, that God had worked overtime with her '' making her one of his masterpieces.
One day, Mary Anne had stopped coming to school. Devastated, I had gone to her house, only to find it all locked up. Checks with neighbours proved futile. No one knew where the Danker family had gone and why they had left so suddenly.
Taking a seat next to her, I wondered what had happened to the ravishing beauty I had once known.
“Why did you leave so suddenly, Mary Anne? Why?”
She looked at me nervously, clasping and unclasping her hands in her lap. I could sense that she was rather reluctant to talk, reluctant to expose a part of her life which had probably caused her a great deal of pain and...
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