Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
        That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
        And then is heard no more: it is a tale
        Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
        Signifying nothing
        Macbeth V.V

        A small girl sat on her bed, legs dangling above the ground. Her hastily brushed hair was in two dirty blonde pigtails, brushing her shoulders. The tip of her right thumb was in her mouth, and she was chewing on it slightly.
        The room was rather small, with the bed pushed up against two walls, and a small book shelf sat adjacent to it stacked with a few old books. The walls were painted a pale yellow had marks of time from a child on it, with crayon and stains of mud. The door was cracked slightly open out into a hallway, but nothing moved out there. A dresser sat at the end of the bed, one drawer open with clothes hanging out of it.
        The girls shirt was on with each button one off. The pale green overlapped the top of her small blue jeans, ripped at the knees and marked with battle wounds of finger paint and the playground. She wiggled her toes in her socks, one green and one purple, then hopped down off the bed.
        She picked up her dirty white keds and pulled them on her feet, collapsing down to the floor so she was sitting. She concentrated greatly and sloppily tied both of her shoes in big, uneven bows then walked to the door.
        She reaches up to the handle and pulls it towards herself, opening the door and stepping out into the small hallway and goes to the first door in it, pushing it slightly open, revealing a small bathroom with a toilet, a sink, and a stool sitting on the floor. Standing up on the stool she grabs her tooth brush from a purple glass, then picks up the bubble gum toothpaste from the counter and puts it on the tooth brush.
        She jumped down from the stool, leaving the toothbrush sitting on the counter, and walked to the stairs. The white carpeting on the stairs was stained and worn, but still worked. She stared up to the top of the stairs, to see if the door was closed. No light showed from above, except for the thin line at the bottom of the door: it was closed. She sprinted up the stairs, stopping abruptly at the top.
        Mommy says that running in the house isn't allowed, but the girl does it anyways when Mommy's not watching, and if the doors closed, Mommy can't be watching.
        She slowly opened the door at the top revealing a narrow hallway. The girl turned to her left and walked into the kitchen.
        Her eyes widened, and she tried to scream. Lying on the ground was her mother. Blood covered the floor, coming from her wrists and neck. I knife lay loosely gripped in her left hand.
        The girl ran over to her mother and shook her, then again.
        "Mommy...?" She whispered softly, expecting a response.
        "Mommy, wake up Mommy." She whimpered quietly.
        The girl tried to remember what her father had told her to do if something bad ever happened. She was supposed to call something. A number, she thought. Daddy had taught it to her when she was learning her numbers. "Corner, corner, corner," her dad's voice went through her head. She pulled a chair over to below the phone, and stood on top of it.
        The numbers on the phone stared at her as she picked it up in her small hand. "Corner, corner, corner," she mumbled to herself and pushed the button on the bottom right corner once, followed by the number on the top right corner twice.
        She placed the phone against her ear and listened.
        "911, what is your emergency" said the voice beyond the line.
        "My mommy's not moving...she's on the ground." the little girl said, tears running down her face, "my mommy's not moving..."
        "How old are you?" the operator asked.
        "I'm four...my mommy's not moving...daddy told me to call this number of bad happened...daddy told me to call...mommy's not moving...she's not moving..."
        "Okay, calm down. Can you tell me your name?"
        "I'm Z..Z..Zoe...but mommy's not moving..."
        "Can you tell me if it looks like your mommy is hurt at all Zoe?"
        "She has blood on her...she's not moving...are you going to help her? She's not moving..."
        "Help is coming Zoe, everything's going to be fine. Stay on the phone."
        "But what about mommy...is it bad that she's bleeding? Will she be alright? I don't want mommy to be hurt...mommy can't be hurt...she's not moving..."
        "Zoe, some people will be at your house soon. Is the door unlocked?"
        "I don't know...but mommy's not moving...will the people help mommy?"
        Zoe could hear sirens approaching, but didn't recognize them as police or ambulance.
        "Yes, the people will help your mommy Zoe." The operator replied.
        "Can they make mommy move? Do you know why mommy isn't moving..."
        "No Zoe, but the people that are going to help you are at your house, the doors unlocked, and they're coming in, so don't be afraid Zoe. They're going to help you."
        Zoe heard the door open and saw four men come in, two in police uniforms.
        "People here now..." Zoe said into the phone, "Should I hang up?"
        "Yes, dear, you can hang up." The operator said, and Zoe put the phone back in its place. She looked up at the men that came in.
        "Mommy isn't moving...Mommy isn't moving..." tears were rushing down her face.
        The police officers looked down at the body, while a paramedic knelt down next to the body.
        "She's not breathing," he said, "But she couldn't have lost enough blood to," he glanced at the small girl standing in the middle of the room, and stopped.
        A fifth man walked into the house, carrying a stretcher, and whispers something to the man kneeling on the ground, he whispers something back and then says slightly louder, "She's not breathing, but I don't think she stopped breathing long ago, and if its only loss of blood she shouldn't be dead yet, we may still be able to save her."
        The fifth man nodded and laid the stretcher out on the ground, and the first two paramedic lifted the girls mother up and set her down on the stretcher, then the two men carefully lifted her body up, letting the knife in her hand fall to the floor. They walked briskly out the door, and the sirens on the ambulance began again, and started to fade off into the distance.
        The fifth man walked over to the two police officers, they both nodded and he walked out the door. The younger of the two officers, who looked about 25, walked over to the little girl, who was just standing in the middle of the room crying for the past two minutes.
        He knelt down next to her and said softly, "Your Mom has been taken to the hospital, we are going to try and make her better."
        "Is mommy going to be okay?" Zoe asked, still crying.
        "I don't know kid, I just don't know. Now, why don't you come with me, and I can take you to see your mommy, okay?"
        Zoe tilted her head up at the officer, who was still kneeling on the floor. She doesn't move, but looks at the red on the ground in her kitchen. No breakfast cooking on the stove. Nothing taken out of the refrigerator or cupboards. Things were the same, yet different. Mommy was always cooking when Zoe came up from her room, cooking breakfast for her and Mommy.
        She stared blankly at the officer at the officer then lowered her head. She paused for a few seconds, looking at the blood on the floor, then nodded slowly.

        Zoe sat on the floor in the waiting room at the hospital. She rolled a marble back and forth, watching the colours spin on the short blue carpet. Daddy had said Mommy was sleeping, the doctors said she wouldn't live through the night.
        But Zoe didn't know that.
        A nurse watched the small child from her place at the desk. The clock on the wall neared midnight, yet the nurse noticed the girl was up again.
        She had fallen asleep earlier today, before her father came. Her father had been out a few times to check on his daughter, the most recent he was crying, but he didn't let his daughter see his tears.
        When he came out, he roughly wiped them from his face, and unsuccessfully tried to smile. He stroked her hair, and looked into her mothers eyes. Tears welled up in his eyes again, so he turned around and walked back away.
        The marble stopped rolling as a small hand covered Zoe's mouth. She yawned, then climbed up unto a padded chair where Daddy's jacket sat. She bunched it up under her head, and slowly closed her eyes.

        Zoe's father paced back and forth in his wife's hospital room. He saw her pale face, her closed eyes, the bandages around her neck. She was so pale, so white, so lifeless. He couldn't imagine why she did this.
        It was so sudden, so unexpected. He didn't know why she did it, he couldn't understand. He felt the tears on his face again and leaned his head against the door frame.
        The metal felt cold upon his forehead. The black of the frame seemed to blur with the white wall.
        He walked out of the hospital room. The narrow hallway that led to the waiting room was brightly lit, it seemed so happy, so light, he hid from it.
        He collapsed into a chair in the waiting room, next to where his daughter was sitting. He watched her sleep. The movement of her stomach with each breath she took.
        She seemed so innocent, so fragile, so small. He stroked her hair out of her face. He didn't want her to be hurt, yet he knew she would be.
        He felt the tears still falling down his face. He kissed her forehead and moved his coat from underneath her head to covering her body.
        He stared at her longer. He knew she wouldn't understand, its impossible. Yet, he somehow knew that when she could understand it would be horrible on her.