Fissures ran along the surface, chasing one another as they bounced beams like twinkling Christmas lights on a decked home of cheer. She imagined smiling faces shining through the window as laughter spills like smoke up the chimney and ribbons spin around the tree on red and green foil boxes.
This was not the girl's first time. Her peculiar interests left her alone and isolated. The time she spent in public was time spent with people giving her side long glances, where skittish whispers followed her shadowed footsteps, leaving echoed impressions in the snow. Reactions that only pushed her further away from furrowed brows and turned backs. It pulled her deeper into her strange hobbies, allowing her to have solace in the only friendships she ever had.
As a little girl, roaming the dense woods with a butterfly net she collected small bones of small beasts. She dreamed of bringing them back to life. Grateful to her, the beasts would never leave her side, trailing her wake as faithful furry friends.
The closest she came was watching them prance from afar, an illusion she was happy enough to indulge in.
The floating bones gleamed and paused. The girl threw the lines to the ground, something swelled in her chest like a balloon until she couldn't breathe. A wind charged over the ice, pressing and pushing the snow off branches to fall heavily atop her head. Wrapping her arms around herself, she shook with an urgency to stay warm as tears spilled on her cheeks and a forced breath steamed from her frozen lungs. Joy
© Ash Huntley
No comments:
Post a Comment