Mute Porcelain

The sunrise kissed her face with the wake of day, the hues of fairy floss and mandarin adding a glimmer of colour to her otherwise pale complexion; but she couldn’t feel its warmth, or admire its beauty. The glowing orb climbed through the blue sky, casting shadows for tiny critters to scurry between. Not one soul paid her any mind.

The due rolled off the leaves but evaporated before the soil could drink its fill and the flowers only opened part way. The birds sung, though never in harmony; a constant battering argument for a perch in the grandest of trees. They too failed to notice her.

As the sun crept towards its peak, the dust swirled in the shards of light, like storybook fairies dancing in the warmth; begging for more time to play before they were forced to settle. The dance was majestic, the ebb and flow of life symbolised in its slowly chaotic movement. The specks would begin to settle when all of a sudden the gentlest breath of air would send them spiralling into monumental splendour. Eventually the air would fall so still, as though the earth itself ceased breathing, and the dust would float to the nearest perch. The breeze brushed, unnoticed, against a snowy cheek, and the dust settled, unfazed, upon her.

She watched again as the sun descended on the horizon, throwing a concoction of colours across the sky and sending daylight life into slumber. The buzz of nocturnal life felt distant; muffled by the darkness that engulfed the room that was barely dampened by the sliver of moon that cut the sky. It seemed as though a midnight cloth had been draped across the window, pricked here and there with pins to let in the light. The darkness brought her no peace.

On and on the days and nights went, like a frustrating child playing with a light switch; they blinked by, uneventful. An age passed and she was blanketed by dust and held together with cobwebs, stiff from so long unmoving and bleached by the unmerciful sun.

If she could ever hope, it would have long subsided.

The sun seemed slow to rise and the bird-song became even more melodramatic. The layer of dust stopped most of the cold from reaching her but the mood of the day appeared to dampen her eyes even more. As the sun forced its way higher amongst the laden clouds the door swung open with a high-pitched squeal penetrating the silence. A rough hand cleared the rest of the contents of the shelf, falling upon her last and lifting her from her prison of years of neglect.

The hand patted her off ungracefully, sending flurries of dust fairies into the air but they fell to the floor uninspired. She was placed in a box along with the other objects and cardboard shut her off from the rest of the world.

If she had the mind to care she may have mourned the view from her shelf. But she wouldn’t, she would spend her next eternity in a box filled with neglected items, painted eyes unblinking, and unthought-of. Over time dust moats would float through the cracks in the box and once again cover her porcelain face.