The Mercury

She smiled when she saw the mercury. After every fragmentation, the scattered quicksilver dashed for a rebound. A tiny fraction, the one-hundredth part, always lost. She had smiled through a marriage that reeked of unfulfilled aspirations. She had always smirked at the bruises of a subdued teenage. She used to laugh to muffle the screams of a painful childhood. The mercury fascinated her, possibly, because it mirrored her. Rebound, yet somewhat lost.