Sophie Bateman

Among the flowers

Thick sweet perfume from the robe of Jasmine flowers adorning the courtyard walls permeated the air as they pulsed slowly and rhythmically against the smooth stone as though it were breathing. Soft rays of twilight glinted through the glass table before me casting a sea of shimmering rainbow across the lush blooming Eden onto a colossal antique mirror that stood sentinel among a thicket of snowy roses. A dull knot wrought in the depths of my soul as I beheld myself within the ornately gilded frame; a dishevelled creature, pitiful and unseemly among this sanctuary of decadence. Grains of wheat burst forth from the mornings threshing clung to my dried brittle hair no matter how much Cook picked at them for me. My eyes drowned in dark pools of weariness holding a heavy gaze on my sunken face forever infused with the grime of a life’s worth of toil while the Sunday best dress offered no lustre to the hollow frame from which it hung.