BURNING SNOW.1

Glowing embers flamed to life as the clock ticked second after second.

Certainty was not her main concern, what with all the people outside.

What happened to get her here she wondered looking at the second hand

move with a grace and ease she herself did not feel. What had she done in

a previous life to merit such masterful deceit of her family and friends?

She had stumbled upon secrets and now she was paying for this. None

of the others, just her. She pokes at a coal burning in the open fireplace

before slipping out to the enclosed back porch. They were still out there,

watching. Waiting. Something for them to do on this cold winter night where

the ice hangs like tendrils of hair from a ghostly visage chasing frightened

children through the bleak forest. What was her next move she asked herself,

her breath steaming out of her hot mouth giving away her position in the

darkness severed only by one large ray of moonlight through the curtained window.

Now that was something, she thought, for suddenly no longer were the onlookers

outside staring in. Where had they gone? More hot streams of breath release

through her nostrils. She slumps against the wooden wall, relieved by by their

absence but it is all for naught. For once outside all now gathered around her

in the room. She slides to the floor her mouth wide in silent terror as her eyes close.

The dish she holds slips from her hand and crashes, a symbol of her mourning

for all those who had broken before her, cracked into a million pieces of flotsam on

the silage of the sea after a storm, something to be raked up and thrown in the trash.

But she was whole, just not the plate. And the others in the room were whole though

transparent like a ghostly apparition or a dream or veil floating across her eyes

dimming even the bright bulb dangling from the ceiling. With her mouth still closed

she hears herself decry their fingers clawing at her very essence. Why were they back

and could she ever satisfy them enough to ensure her escape through the cracks in

the floor? Stationary before her they stand. She stares back with disdain. Why are

they here and what is the thing they want to take from her to make up for the egregious

mistake she made but which until now knew nothing about? There were so many to

choose from. But she dare not ask, for what if they demand she tell all, confess all and

she only a few inches from the door and wondering could she make a run for it and then

what? Always the then what. The front door crashes against the wall and one by one

her tormentors file past her in silence, as she lays huddled and shaking in the corner.

Shaking about what she did not know for surely this meant retreat. They continue

drifting past, energized with a mission they did not have before. Eyes peering from

their corners as they pass and smile like they know her, like they will see her again. And

she cries because the fear is in her bones and her head rests against the dirty grainy floor

that needs a good sweep or at least a strong shake and the way she sits up makes her

wonder if she is not already one of them. Now on her feet she slips in line behind the

last one out of the room and blends in as they move in a huge, wave-like motion across

the snow and through a hole in the trunk of an old oak tree guarding the door to the

bare forest...