Winter Morning by leenik on DeviantArtMy whole body felt as if it were on fire. It was probably because I was too close to the sun. At least that's how it felt. I had been lying in the frost laden grass for about an hour and a half now and could feel the UV rays seeping past my clothes to the dermis: that's the top layer of skin. The whole thing is called the epidermis, from out to in, and back around again.
That almost sounds like a child's rhyme.
Opening my eyes was like waking up after sleeping for 12 plus hours, the light streams in through a crack in the curtain and it goes right into your eyes. You can feel the sheer whiteness of the light sear into your eyes and bore into the back of your head. It's something about the winter sun that makes it whiter and brighter.
I stood unsteady on shaky limbs that had settled into a sleep-like position and felt the pins and needles of numbness prickling my feet and trail up to the tops of my thighs. I swallowed the cobwebs from my mouth and stretched to the sky. Today was different than all the others. Today I was going to do something more, something better, something bigger and different and unique and it would make an impact and erase all the bad.
Dusting the dirt and grass from my skirt, I tromped through the cold dead leaves, pulling my woolen shawl tighter around my bodice, trying to forget that my organs were rearranged in a different pattern than nature intended. I could see the white cloud of my breath to remind me that it was late January, and that I should have been inside hours ago. Bending over with what seemed like great difficulty I wrapped my hand around the nettles and yanked them out feeling the prickly texture of the perimeter of the leaves. A bright emerald against the rouge of my fingerless woolen gloves. My fingertips were almost the same color. It was a wonder I hadn't frozen to death while taking my afternoon respite.
Cold penetrates with unrelenting tenacity, until it takes over, spreads to the bone and travels to all parts until it freezes and captures and takes takes takes...It reminds me of him. I can hear his voice, feel his touch and my lip curls, my eyes narrow. Hate is the only thing I can think of when I think of him. And then I hear my name on his lips.
"Rosalie! Ge' ova 'ere righ' na' an' make ma' dinna'!"
Ill-bred. Can't even speak properly. Just his bastardization of low land inbreeding. But this is my lot in life. I was the first daughter of 4, the 'lucky' one as my mother put it. Oh, we were simple low merchant class, but this man would make my name rise above the rest. The executioner was in his own class, he got paid more than any merchant, sometimes more than a lord, depending on the execution.
He was rough with me, more than expected...more than I was warned. Every time he bedded me he made sure I was in pain before he finished. It was my duty, my job, my position to give him what he desired when he returned from executing this or that peasant for whatever reason. I never know why, and now after a year of it, I don't care. Trudging down to the village, smoke trailing from our chimney I knew that my constitution would not last if I didn't muster courage quickly.
"Coming..." I breathed and opened the door with my left hand, the nettles clutched tightly in my right. "I'll be right there."
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