It could have at least been humiliating, but not even that was to be for the room was stark, filled only with a silent gray that she could feel like wool scratching her from the inside. There were no curious or mocking eyes and not even his would cross her as he stood motionless and blank-faced, just far enough away that she couldn’t sense the warmth of another living thing on her chilled, searching skin. She shivered, she whimpered, she sobbed, but her sound was lost. It was so disorienting to feel her lungs deflate and her ragged throat vibrate as she wailed, but only hearing fluffy silence.
She lifted her head and searched the room; the walls were too far away to see and every direction faded to black. There was only him, and at his feet was the bag of accoutrements that had once so warmed and comforted her usually unreachable soul. She knew it was going with him along with the searing touch he yielded from it. She tried to look at him, hoping for a path to pleading, but discovered his gaze focused on some abyss over her shoulder.
“At least spit on me!!” her mind screamed. She hung her head once again and the tears just could not rain fast enough to relieve the up-swell. It made her eyes feel as if they would burst. Just then she felt him nearer and a spark of hope as his finger slid under her collar. She rolled her downcast eyes apprehensively upward hoping to see a sign of thaw, but found the same far away stare. His finger curled around the collar and he gave it a muscular jerk. She gasped, expecting to be thrown to the floor, but the thick leather strap just seemed to tear away like tissue paper. Maybe it was all just paper and mist all along.
She tried to gather some dignity as she watched him pick up the bag and nonchalantly amble away. The room fell away and she found herself outside in a snowy squalor. The cold crept over the freshly naked stripe around her neck and continued to spiral around her torso and limbs to join the winter wind, carrying away the heat that kept her spirit alive. Quick-frozen and shattered, she could feel the jagged bits of her heart tinkle down through her insides and settle painfully in her joints, leaving her unable to move.
She wobbled in her tracks and fell to the pavement. Then, the wind ceased to blow and the soft, brilliant white flakes gently buried her there, she hoped forever. |