An Ode to the Barrenness

Once, a meadow drowning in wildflowers inhabited this land. It was idyllic; the swing hanging from a willow’s branch swayed in the honey-sweetened breeze as Blue Tits whistled merrily to one another. They were often chased by the less visually extraordinary Linnets, but they were merry all the same. Standing in front of the solitary house, you would believe you had stumbled into an aviary, brimming with exotic birds. Surpriingly, each of the birds were typical of this region. Exoticism came from how each layer of birdsong wove into the other. The tapestry of sound could only have been crafted by Apollo himself. Each chirp and tweet felt as profound as the next, leading you to believe you had never heard a thing like it before. A brook percolated through the stones and pebbles right by this meadow’s edge. It too seemed to dance along to Apollo’s symphony. In the summertime, the quiet gargle of the shallow brook felt as though it could trickle away even the darkest of sins with its calm, intentional licks. Crickets were the only ones who could avoid its intoxicating coolness on the hot days, as they chirped in one of the many patches of purple lupins dotting the opening around the house. It was such a heavenly sight to behold, then.

If it weren’t for this house boasting the same intricately carved oak door you would not recognise the wasteland it had now become, with each passing year a new crack formed which looked sure to be it's last. With its rich chestnut stain, and playful diamond peeping hole at its lusty heart, it appeared so out of place in this lifeless picture. The enchanting little ticks and whispers, which created the music of the meadow, were now replaced with hollow moans from the wind. Stormy sighs shook the bones of the house. The barrenness of the place is most obvious in the grass, however. Each blade, once emerald and dewy, is now a sharp grey needle. Together they spatter the infertile dustbowls which whip mini sand twisters with each flick. If you walked close enough to the windows of the house, you would believe it a miracle the grit from these sand clouds hadn’t smashed the silk-thin panes long before now. Perhaps it is better that these panes still imprisoned the sorrowful air festering in this house.

Whilst you stand there, next to the window… peer in. A much more harrowing sight than the grim exterior awaits your gaze. There she is. Sat right there. In the hallway.

Slumped in her threadbare armchair, she sits and faces the inside of the hand carved, chestnut stained door. An elaborate gold thread and paisley patterned fabric once upholstered her weary throne, but the colours were now a microcosm of the cruel skies which have surrounded the house ever since that day. Each arm of the chair elegantly rises, and falls, with an effortlessness of fine French craftsmanship - Her skeletal form is another sight entirely. Emaciated, as the walls that contained her, you would think her dead were it not for the reddish hue that crowned her pitted eye sockets. They were sodden and raw from her own tearful sorrow. Even in this condition, her beauty was undeniable... Hair that cascaded down one side of her sad face, over a sharp collarbone, making a whirlpool forming at her waist... A romantic mind could dream it once fell in curls. Men would just see how it sits, rather unspectacular, in a solitary matted heap.

Each day has been the same since that day. Her routine is as much a part of her as the house is becoming. The only thing which appears to have worn, rather than sit idle and layered in dust, is a path which has been birthed from her stumbles across the splintering floorboards to the enormous mirror in the adjacent room. She will rise each morning at sunrise from the frayed chair facing the carved door, struggling more with each trip. A short stagger over to the floor length mirror, she finds a slender stool waiting for her. Brass, framing the great sheet of glass, is swollen from oxidisation but it too has beauty beyond physical neglect. Fig leaves adorning every angle, as if it were growing from her reflection. Watching her ritual. One solitary cherub silently serenades her with his non-existent harp song. She hums along to its familiar tune - eerily harmonising with the whistles of wind that makes their way through the cracks of the giant oak door. These deliberate whisps of the air barging around the door were enough to chill her, as she perches on her slender crutch. A skeletal hand reaches over to the side table. Tiptoeing her fingers as you would to a childs palm singing "Round and round the garden...", she reaches her talismans – a pot of rouge powder, and a lipstick in a letterbox red. Both were fashionable at the time she met him, that day.

The ritual begins. She fingered the pink powder where the apples of her cheeks once sat. Using both hands, the index and middle fingers make their circular motions. Youth, or lack thereof, always seems so evident in that area. Soothing her restless mind, her eyes close during these strokes… Almost as if she is manifesting a time more pleasing to her. It is always twelve circles. No more, and no less. Powder topples down her haggard clothes; her skin had become leathery and toughened over the years. The front of her breasts now boasts the faintest speckle of blushing pink which seemed more intentional after each ceremony. If you asked, the ritual is not for her. It is for him. She seals her ceremonial practice with two vibrant crescents along the ditch that houses her decaying teeth. With a forced drawn in breath, his name forms on her lips - only once. The ritual is now complete.

Violently, the wind managed to crack the diamond glass peeper, housed in the heavy oak door. She did not hear the crack. Her body remained stiffly in its self-inflicted paralysis. Where it not for the playful glint that teased her through the fresh opening she probably would have allowed the inevitable hypothermia to take her. The light beckoned her, playfully. Peace from the thought of death distracted her momentarily. The persistent glint danced for her again as the wind bellowed its usual dreary moan. One unkept toe at a time crept forward in an uneager manor, directing her forward to that chestnut door.

Forgetting her intentions, she knelt down to solve the glass puzzle before her. Rouged pink fingertips were now sobbing a red, matched only by the shade of her painted downturned lips. Trying to piece together the fractures of the diamond jigsaw, a twinkle of silver light demanded her concentration again. She peered one eye out through the hole. The same barren existence, that had kept her seated in the house all that time, greeted her stare. Another slither of light. Reluctantly, her hand cupped the top of the opening – with the same fingers that guided her ritualistic fondling, she explored the strange outside air. She did this for a while before the glinting object found its place among her bloodied, emerging probes. Feeling a delicate chain between the stings, and a frozen metal heart at the base of the pendulum. It all precariously hung off the knob of the door. She pulled at the chain, pulling it through the glass-spined hole. Letting the heart shaped object drop down by her side. With unusual ease, the heart popped open, to reveal the rusted interior of a locket. Silencing the internal dread which pleaded with her to throw the thing away, she reluctantly brought the pictures housed in this heart up to her unwanting eyes.

Her hands dropped faster than her knees, when her groggy mind made sense of the images in front of her. Slumped over her knees, she wept. Moaning skies were not the only sounds which replacing the now ancient birdsong anymore. Each time composure washed over her, allowing her to catch her breath, she would see him. His blue eyes, and wilful mourning would flow through her again. There was a child in the picture, opposite to the photograph of him. One who shared his father’s eyes, smile, complexion. She had seen this child before. In her dreams. The only difference was that in the dreams, he had her hooked nose, rather than an unknown donor’s button one like the picture.

In the same trance that composed her for all the time she sat in her armchair, it had come to consume her once more. She walked through that chestnut stained, oak door. Footprints in the grass remained where the blades stabbed until she was bloody. Yet she kept on going.

Not even the malevolent winds could seek her after that day. The gargling brook never would never run by the front of the house either. If the setting seemed barren with her melancholy spirit housed in the house, after it would appear dead. All that remained of any substance was the silver locket. Sat behind the oak doorway, as it waited for the house to inevitably collapse.