This was some English exercise about growing up and I got slightly carried away.
She was
born under a starless December sky. Her eyes were a blue as cold as
the ice that lined the streets, and as bright as the lights from the
cars that skated over them in the darkness. They wrapped her in
blankets and tucked her tiny feet into fuzzy little socks to protect
them from the cold. Her name was Rowena.
She lived
in a small house made of smooth wood and soft carpets and candles and
windows. The world outside was nearly always pale with snow, or
clouds, or both. With her toddler feet clad in clunky rubber boots
and her torso encapsulated in a puffy coat, she'd step into the great
outdoors, resembling a marshmallow or a child whose parents were
cautious and loving. She loved the snow since the very beginning. She
loved the family dog – fluffy, huge, and with a bark as resonant as
a bass drum.
She got
older and her tawny-colored hair got longer. Soon she was in school –
sitting at a desk painted to look like wood, surrounded by
manufactured warm air and blackboards. She liked books, though. The
pages were always soft under her fingers. She disliked the whiny
voice of the teacher, and she disliked math. The sight of the bright
yellow worksheets always made her squirm.
Years
passed. Rowena was twelve and she carried a backpack that weighed her
down as if the snowy ground was trying to suck her into the
underworld. Sometimes boys with feathery messy hair and crooked mean
grins and voices that cracked every few words would ask her why she
always spent her time reading instead of speaking, and when she
looked at them indifferently they'd laugh and walk off. They'd
dismiss her as a nerd. They made her realize that her indifference
was turning to insecurity. When they bothered her, she'd sit outside
on the porch chair and crush snowballs in her mittened hands as if
they were her worries, and as if getting rid of them was that easy.
Rowena
was fifteen and everyone was vibrating with the weird energy of
adolescence. Everyone was acting like they were too old for
themselves and once she caught her best friend kissing someone else
she cared about under the bluish light of the staircase leading to
the library, and she whirled around and ran out of school like the
Alaska winds were causing her to fly. The tears froze to her reddened
cheeks. She tripped in the driveway and her jeans tore and her
skinned knee leaked cherry red onto the ice and she cried and felt
unbelievably hurt and stupid. Rubbing the wound with snow numbed the
pain somewhat.
Rowena
was nineteen and she happily left behind the old brick school where
she had grown up in favor of one where she could read all the time
and people wouldn't scoff. She missed her parents, and she missed
careless snow days at home.
Upon
graduating, she moved to a city where the sun was blazing hot and
snow was nothing more than a zamboni driver's wildest dream. She got
used to trading fur-lined boots in for strappy sandals, and to giving
up hot chocolate for lemonade. She married a man who had eyes like
starlight and a laugh like birdsong. Their house became full of books
and children.
It was a
long time before she remembered the snow again.
