The girl from the mire: part 2
Were we ever alive? Were we ever here? Were we ever?
Judith exists in a graveyard. Her tombstone is so old that it looks like a smooth glacial stone. Protrudes into her dusty, dormant grass world. Inhabitants are terri...
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Judith feels every touch of the vicious cold. Nude flesh burns icily. Witnesses painful breaths float from her shivering lips before her eyes. Every exhale's like an apparition escaping from the haunted house of her mouth. Runs through the frigid brumal. White deep ground bites and pierces bare feet. Ice air torches her lungs like a branding iron. Judith's skin wets from snow. Instantly freezes. Cracks. Bleeds solid crimson upon her nudity. Torturous deep freeze numb toes and soles slam one side of her chilly body into a hard ugly border tree. Grasps the flayed bark. Hugs the rough tree skin with her whole body. Scrapes nipples. Biceps. Inner thighs. Climbs quickly up to a large branch. It's big enough to support her weight. Finds where she hopes to sit, brushes away snow. Positions her back against the rhytidome of the grey wintertime ironwood. Sits bare. Screams into the howl of the wind. Swears in a language of vulgarity. Frantically rubs her digits to warm them. Loses balance. Catches herself before she falls. Swears. Rubs.
Graveyard girl isn't out of the windy chill at this height. Knows she can't linger on the hard, flesh scraping limb for too long. World of a true winter is hell upon her well being. Shivers more and more. Rubs her feet harder with her numb hands. Cups palms around snow burnt foot skin. Breaths warm exhales upon her toe wounds. Frozen tears in her eyes. Frozen upon her cheeks.
Never knew physical pain while in this world. Now it's all her body will allow her to know.
Clouds mange as the sun reflects off the snow. Blinds. Leaves a haze of stars in Judith's summertime eyes when she closes them. When she undoes her eyelids, thoughts about the external world click like puzzle pieces from a different puzzle in her brain. Even through the agony of her feet she finds herself delving into her own psychogenic compass. She's been so worried about surviving the cold that she didn't notice the absence of shadows until just now. The border trees have no black reflection upon white. The snow cradle of rocks groaning from the ground have no rolling, toothy mini mountainous contour. There's no shade in this place. Not anymore. But Judith can't recollect if there ever was. Only remembers her shadow.
Can't continue to think of this dilemma at the moment because she's not able to. Freezing to death, or so her body is letting her know she's experiencing that kind of serious solidity. It's the pain of the external world playing with her mind. Judith has survived and thrived in much worse situations but this is an amplification. Unnatural. This world was never this harsh to her.
The graveyard girl lifts her gaze. Watches from the branch she sits on. In the sun, can clearly witness the snow covered frozen lake. At a distance on the snow cover ice, like a hypothermic mirage, stands a familiar house. Recognizes the structure which previously existed at the very bottom of the dirty water. It's the house that holds the porthole to the sunny, blue sky, perfectly manicured lawn conurbation. But that entrance has since disappeared. Maybe the graveyard girl can somehow start it up again. But she must get there first. For that, she'll need her feet. Continues to frantically slide her palms up and down her poor dead dogs as best she can like an unlearned fire starter.
