The woman pulled her scarf up a little higher
over her face. Her lips were frozen together, fringed with frost that was
beginning to lace her eyelashes and hair with the same diamond encrusting.
There was nothing in her surroundings that urged her on, nothing in her body
that kept her moving. Within her soul, however, the fire refused to smoulder
out. The movement of her legs had become mechanical: though they felt like dead
weights knotted loosely to a sagging frame, it was her legs that were moving –
tramping across the wastelands. The Chruthúdia,
the people called it, with bitter familiarity. The Creation of the Devil.
She briefly closed her eyes, her hands
closing tighter around her precious cargo. Grey-white hair fell stiffly in a sheet down
her back, the same colour as her large eyes. Her eyebrows were permanently
furrowed in a frown, creasing her pale
skin like sharp paper folds into an eternal state of disappointment. Her
clothes did nothing to liven her appearance: a simple, thin tunic, thrown over
slate grey shorts and boots. Not suitable for the weather. She had nothing
else. Onwards the woman marched, across
this endless plain that only petered out with the boredom of its Creators. They
were not interested today, and the weather held steady; tripping dangerously on
the edge of a full storm yet never losing its footing. No, it was not a day for
excitement. No icy sleet, or impenetrable fog. Just cold. Very, very cold. Some days it could even be striking– when the clouds reluctantly dispersed and
cleared, the moonlight would shine through, generously shedding beauty on all
it touched. The slimy grey mud would be awash in the unearthly silver that beamed
down from above, glittering and glowing in a mournful, isolated way. The Chruthúdia
took on the persona of a cold, exquisite lady, unwilling to share its mesmerising
secrets and ruthless when it did.
She wasn’t fooled, however. Today the moon
did not try to trick the poor fools of the earth, and unmasked the land for
what it was: ugly, unforgiving, dangerous. It was not one of the days that the
world stopped to hold its breath in blissful appreciation – an irony, maybe,
for what was about to occur.
© 2009 Jeremiah Blatz
© 2009 Jeremiah Blatz
