The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
—"Stopping by Woods On a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost
There were no stars in Gotham, at least none that you could see. Urban pollution had choked the skies and even the moon, a sliver in the blackness, was turned an eerie color. Becky remembered her mother's distaste when they had come there. Her elder brother had scrunched his nose in disgust at the litter on the streets. The youngest of them; her sister who was hardly past a year-old, had nothing to compare it to. She was content.
Becky had been beyond angry. She had been uprooted after her last year of middle school. She was to be heading to a new high school where she knew no one. She hated it. She had hated her parents for uprooting the family. She had just gained friends who saved her from the torment of the bullies. It would be back to square one then. The taunts would start anew, the questions would begin again.
What's with the cane? Why aren't you in special classes? Cripple! Twisted! Freak! Freak! She can't play with us, she can't walk right. Why do I have to sit by the girl with the funny legs?
She had hated her parents. She had hated Gotham. She had learned that like the stars in the skies, the good memories were to be shadowed always by poison. Hope was there, but lost in the haziness of the city, the gritty darkness that kept her in at night. She had never had cause for a curfew in Hanover, the city she had used to live in.
Yet perhaps the move had taught her things. Not to be selfish, to be happy for the things she did have, and in the end that there were people who were worse than her. Everyone hid in anger. They hid embarrassment in anger, sadness in anger, everything in anger. Everyone was only protecting themselves.
Becky drove, now twenty-six through the streets of Gotham, back to her apartment in her newly fixed car. She realized that at times the city infected her like venom, but there were times it made her happy. The good times were only good because of the bad times. In a city like Gotham, you came to appreciate luck more. You saw the darkness and the light was brighter as a result. It made love all the sweeter and she knew she was falling for the mysterious Jonathan Crane who accepted her, respected her, and in some moments the man who hungered after her.
She clutched to the feelings because in Gotham the darkness could overshadow happiness in an instant. She had to live while she could, enjoy life, and keep believing the hope was there, even if she couldn't see it.