Longer post: Threads.

It was the end of summer. The leaves on trees were beginning to crisp on their branches and slowly, silently, tumbled to the ground, and early risers and housewives hanging out washing saw their breath suspended white before them. At the top of a road in a Victorian building, a little girl with brown skin and black hair stood out amongst the other children as they lined up on a tarmac playground with bright shapes painted onto the floor.
'What's your name?' a small girl enquired. She didn't answer; she couldn't understand. Her bottom lip trembled at the unfamiliar sounds of a foreign language and the strange, cool air that made her teeth chatter. The teacher saw, but she said nothing. She had a whole class of new pupils to deal with, all crying and scared, and was preoccupied, replaying a moment in her mind from the weekend that had just passed. She had visited home, and ran up to her mother to embrace her in a familiar town, filled with a familiar feeling, and yet…For the first time, awkwardness lay between them. They had become strangers. They walked without linking arms, an action of friendship that they usually undertook, and talked about their separate lives. As she struggled to lead the last of the children into a line, a rusty car revved its engine outside the school gates, filling the air with the stink of petrol. A young woman got out and slammed the door shut, tears in her eyes. She stood on the pavement, waving goodbye to the boy in the car. He looked back at her with mournful eyes as the car carried him away from her for another long period of time. In a flat overlooking the street, an old man watched, and began to write. ‘Single white male WLTM single white female, 50+, must love the outdoors. For companionship and friendship and…’. He put down his pen as he saw that week’s lonely hearts column out of the corner of his eye. He picked up the paper, skimming the ads, and began to smile at the people selling themselves to strangers. His sense of how big and empty his flat was began to disappear, filling up with lonely hearts like himself. He walked over to the window and looked downward at the young woman in the street. She thought back to her gripping embrace with the boy from whom she had just parted. She felt their hands clasped, remembered the things they had done as a couple, as a unit. Once again she knew her place in the world, her uniqueness came flooding back, and she walked on, making eye contact with everyone she could. In the school, the teacher was herding children into the class when she received a phone call. She stopped shepherding and picked it up to answer.
‘Mum, I’m at work! I told you I’d ring you later!’ she said in an irritated tone. Yet as she heard her mother’s voice talking back to her she felt satisfied. Normality was somehow re-established and she hung up smiling. In the teacher’s brightly coloured classroom the little girl with the foreign eyes trembled in her seat in the corner, unsure and confused. She looked up as a boy, a late arrival, entered the classroom, crying and clinging onto his father as he tried to retreat. As he tried to peel the boy off his leg with gentle words, the boy began to scream with fear of leaving him. Silently, the little girl got up and walked over. She offered her hand to the boy and he stopped screaming, interested in her offer but still weepy and shyly curling into his father. After a few words of encouragement from his father, the boy took her hand, and she led him back to her table. She gestured to him and they began to laugh together as the father quickly made his escape. Out of the school gates streamed the parents who had made the break, gently smiling to one another and heading to their quiet houses as the bell rang to start the school day.