Saturday's Storyteller: "The snowflakes fell softly on the girl who wasn't there."
by Belinda Roddie
The snowflakes fell softly on the girl who wasn't there. And yet she was there. And I saw her. She wore a simple purple dress, with a a skirt that turned to peppered gray from the drifting sleet. And it bristled against the dark brown sheen of her skin. Quite the opposite of my complexion, pale and nearly transparent in the cold winter.
I wanted to push my way through the white wall then, to scoop the frail thing up in my arms and carry her into my cabin, to melt away the ice that crystallized around her arms with a small fire in the hearth. But I knew that if I tried, my fingers would only move through the curve of her hips and the bend of her knees, and I would simply be lifting air and frost and water and attempting to haul it into my sad excuse for a home.
I knew her, long ago. She was an old student of mine. She had sat in a desk in front of me when I still taught history, the idiosyncratic ravings of archivists on old paper in old textbooks. That was before I became schoolmaster. That was before they found her, facedown, in the creek on my property.
I had not meant to entice her. But she adored me. Her kisses felt like snowflakes on my cheeks and lips.
The girl stood there and did not move, and I watched her, until my wife finally pulled me away from the window, whispering to me that there was nothing I could do. For she saw her, too. She saw how her black curls turned to white from the snow. How the blizzard became the only blanket for her permanent bed in the wild. And how, when the gusts howled, I could swear I could hear her voice asking questions that I did not have answers to.
"Why am I here? Why can't I move?
Why am I here? Why can't I move?
Why am I here? Why can't I move?"
Why are we Here. Why can't we Move.
This week's prompt was provided by Daniel Bulone.
The snowflakes fell softly on the girl who wasn't there. And yet she was there. And I saw her. She wore a simple purple dress, with a a skirt that turned to peppered gray from the drifting sleet. And it bristled against the dark brown sheen of her skin. Quite the opposite of my complexion, pale and nearly transparent in the cold winter.
I wanted to push my way through the white wall then, to scoop the frail thing up in my arms and carry her into my cabin, to melt away the ice that crystallized around her arms with a small fire in the hearth. But I knew that if I tried, my fingers would only move through the curve of her hips and the bend of her knees, and I would simply be lifting air and frost and water and attempting to haul it into my sad excuse for a home.
I knew her, long ago. She was an old student of mine. She had sat in a desk in front of me when I still taught history, the idiosyncratic ravings of archivists on old paper in old textbooks. That was before I became schoolmaster. That was before they found her, facedown, in the creek on my property.
I had not meant to entice her. But she adored me. Her kisses felt like snowflakes on my cheeks and lips.
The girl stood there and did not move, and I watched her, until my wife finally pulled me away from the window, whispering to me that there was nothing I could do. For she saw her, too. She saw how her black curls turned to white from the snow. How the blizzard became the only blanket for her permanent bed in the wild. And how, when the gusts howled, I could swear I could hear her voice asking questions that I did not have answers to.
"Why am I here? Why can't I move?
Why am I here? Why can't I move?
Why am I here? Why can't I move?"
Why are we Here. Why can't we Move.
This week's prompt was provided by Daniel Bulone.
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