I have come to the table of reason. I have spilled my fair mind to the glass. A fluted affair of a glass sitting there, but the wine has lost reason and flair. Dread eats the sweat on my brow. I know who is sleeping up there. Up stairs paved in lavender and dust from the age, up stairs crossed by footsteps, uneven with pain. I know what awaits and it sours the vine which has seen fit to fill this unreasoned glass of mine.
So with start and great anger, my chair is thrown back. To this table I hungered and now hunger lacks. For what misery plaguing can cause such disease to my eyes? There is no ease left for those stairs do climb high. And if I pray to be worthy, I must rise unfulfilled. Let my stomache go hungry and my wine glass stay still. Let the small, beeswax candle be the whole of my fill as my legs walk, unsteady, to where the stairs will.
The air is stifling this winter, although cold, it yet reeks. It remains filled with horror, it hangs icy with grief. At the crest of the landing, where the steps now have lead, lies a door to a room with an unempty bed. My approach is a lifetime, each step ten years long. In my head I hear screams and I hate that damned song. The music of torment hangs like flakes in the air. My tears blown by winter form snowflakes in my hair. The door still draws near. I am old in my fear. Or is it the reason, returned with the age I have gained in my walk to this terrible place?
On the bed is a body, on its stomache, lain flat. The rush of the image brings a memory back. A girl in the summer, summer grass at her feet. The sun smiles, clouds gather and her laughter is sweet. Laughter? I’m shaken, like a drunkard to sense. There is no cool humour in this dire instance. I feel waves of sun rays as the ice eats her toes. On the bed, on her face, a summer girl in ice throes.
I step close with an intent to lift her up high, hold her in my slim arms and blow the tears from her eyes. Body light like a feather yet more fragile by far. The summer girl’s body, when lifted falls apart. She is snowflake and mistrust, hail and pain. I form of her a snow angel then fall to my knees praying. “Let this fragile collection of what life denies, find a field to settle where the snow can melt fine. Fine and fair, settle there and find some flowers’ root. Nurse its life into health and then find its health too.
I’ll forget my wineglass, my hunger and my table, to know that when the snow falls a summer girl is able…to smile again.