Book of Random

Frozen Stones

The frozen night made the pale moon shiver, bundling up in any of the frosted glass clouds that drift in the dark with little rush. They knew what they saw, they've saw it all, even if they wish they didn't see it. The chill of winter was no longer a bother to them.

Once lush grass yards, with gardens so big the rich were jealous, so colorful artists cried at the flowery canvas now laying asleep under castle walls of solid, shimmering white. The cold tears of the hidden sun. Black roads of tar and gravel float like moats around these already uncross-able palaces of snow and unbreakable ice. Drawbridge driveways begin to disappear from the harshly biting winds carrying sharp shards of snow. Only one remained freshly paved. The grey cement hill was dusted with salt and lakes of burning ice. A pathway freshly shoveled arched through the frozen garden and lead to a frosted glass door shrouded under a small roof build just for it and its tiny porch. The untouchable glass texture changed with each silver bar that crossed its path. It was too hard to see into, too hard to see out of, too hard to knock on. Old, rusty, square lanterns hung from worn rope clinging to the little roof with the little life it has left. The dwindling fires inside the broken glass flicker in the wind before being exhausted, consuming the porch in that unforgiving, sleepy darkness.

She looked towards the large window stuck frozen on the side of the hardly visible shelter. It took over most of the wall and the top of it arched to follow the sharp contrasting lines of the roof consumed by snow. Rotting, yellowing wood with white paint chipping off borders the window and a false wall of dull grey painted stone that are made to look like they are supporting the shelter and have been for longer than it has stood. Fake, white, pink, green leafed, sunny orange, cherry blossoming flowers watched her pathetic body tremble in the silencing snow. They seemed to scoot closer to the dim flicker of candle light behind them, remembering the thought of the cold world outside. She looked down at her mud soaked, ripped jeans, her discolored rags she torn from peoples' shirts as she walked down sidewalks now being used to wrap shoe soles to her blackening toes. Fixing one of the soles with a nub of a left hand, only the palm remaining from the last winter. A cost that doesn't seem so bad as of now. What will the next price be?

She looked back to the door and sighed raggedly, frost stealing away her voice. She opened the door and limped in. The wave of warmth stung her flesh, stabbed at her blood that was icing over, the smell of metallic roses stabbed at her nose, the smoke of a dinner stained her lifeless eyes. She unwrapped her feet on the big stone step and looked at the worn, splintering dark wood floor. A soft brown dinner table to her left was perfectly polished. Candles atop golden candelabras illuminated a massive golden goose big enough for five families to feast for weeks. Silver bowls as big as pigs drowned in steaming orange stew, two even larger bowls overloaded with puffy rolls caked in sugar and mashed potatoes soaking up melting slices of butter. black , shiny plates await to be filled. A small fireplace stands opposite of the window all alone, red wood curved plumply around baking iron and red hot flame which held a tin pan that a fruity pie baked in. on top of the wood was a silver candelabra shaped into three trees, tealights glow hollowly among the metal branches and against the tan painted walls so clean they shined in the shifting darkness.the screams of the wind rang from the windows and the old walls moaned in pain from their sharpened claws.

A man and woman sat side by side on the long bench stretching to match the length of the table's side. Their broad shoulders pressed together so tightly if one weakened they would both fall to that one's side possibly breaking something. Their shadowed backs to her but their unseen faces already watching her, nearly snapping off their own necks. They slowly stood in unison, the man putting his hands behind his ever so gently, trying not to disturb the sounds of the candles' flames. His hair combed back and slicked with grease that shines red in the yellowed light. The woman had some sort of knee high dress belted at her small waist, her hair curved from her scalp like a heart then curved outwards near her shoulders in sharp points that tore at the threads or her dress' sleeves. The hair stuck like this by years worth of hair spray. Their cheeks puffed out into forced grins, just like all the others. She didn't speak nor utter a sigh, she waited. A routine so normal to her it no longer needed explanation. They knew what she wanted. She didn't know what they wanted. She can't avoid the risk any longer, it's the heart of winter in a world that just kept getting colder. Plants no longer bloomed in spring but in summer. The law was her only way of survival now/ it is only a matter of time until it becomes her end too.

The woman held out her hand so slowly her bones popped and cracked with an echo, she pointed towards a hall of carpeted stairs stretching up to an abyss of darkness, another stairway just a sliver of wall beside it leading downwards into the same inky black. She didn't stir. Her feet felt frozen solid to the long mistreated wood. This was possible... the woman once again glided her hand towards the stairs but a little quicker, beckoning her. They're not this kind. They can't be. None had been ever so generous in the hardening winters. Everyone was turning at bitter as the snow. This wasn't possible. She couldn't move. The man this time had beckoned even quicker than they both did in unison. Their arms jutting out to their sides under a wind of strong forces. Their cheeks puffed out into a tighter grin.