text: Scathach Danu Sweet Caroline 
   
   
     
   
  “Caroline” the tall blonde woman called as she entered the small apartment. She was holding a paper grocery bag and was almost bubbling over with pure excitement. Maybe she finally got a real job. Maybe they could finally afford clothes, shoes, furniture, and something other than pasta to eat. Maybe they could move out of the small apartment that they both hated so much “Caroline I’m home!” 
  No answer 
  Caroline, her fifteen year old daughter was probably sketching like she normally was when she got home. Only fifteen and she could already draw like an adult. She was that good 
  The ways of the American teenager were foreign to her. It had been a long time since she was fifteen. This was evident in her tired weather beaten face. She wasn’t even that old. She was just tired and overworked. 
  Caroline was always encouraged to follow her dreams of becoming a fashion designer. She was always sketching and drawing beautiful dresses and hanging them on the gray walls of the run-down apartment building, giving them to neighbors when they were sick. Everyone loved Caroline 
  “Caroline?” She asked in the silence that followed. She scanned the dark room. Mentally cursing herself for not paying the power company on time. She spotted the back of Caroline’s blonde head and sighed in relief. 
  She set the bag down next to some half wilted flowers and walked over. Caroline’s head was bowed in concentration. Probably over her latest dress. Still something made her hand stretch forward and rest on her daughters shoulder.  
  Caroline’s head rolled off and she fell off the stool. The blood was everywhere. In the corner, on the desk, on Caroline’s favorite pink sweater. 
  She screamed in grief. She screamed in fear. She screamed because the one person she was sure she still loved was gone.  
  Dead means gone, dead means broken, dead means lost. Death is forever.  
  Only later Caroline would come to a schizophrenic little girl at her fourth hospital visit and tell her story. 
   
   
   Publication Date: August 4th 2012 https://www.bookrix.com/-scathach24