Chaumiere
Wind blowing. Leaves rustling. Rocks protruding. Boots scraping. Every cause has an effect. She runs, kicking up spotted and torn yellow and brown leaves that have fallen with the emergence of autumn. As she rushes past, the leaves levitate, a failed attempt to rejoin the branch; nostalgia for the previous season, when they were linked, propped and secured above the earth, bringing life.
Chilled, swooshing wind streaks her face; violent, muffled gusts bat her ears like a drum. Salty tears seep from the side of her squinting eyes and are caught in her long, blonde waves of hair, which are bouncing on her shoulders and back like a cowboy attempting to tame his wild, spooked horse. Her inhales and exhales come in sharp bursts, scraping the air like her boots scrape the rocks. Muscles in her legs contract, relax, push, pull, jerk; her blood pumps. Toes grip and maneuver the uneven terrain. The impact of the ground to her feet reverberates through her straining body and comes again and again; the pounding echoes in her ears, or is that her heartbeat?
Fast, strong heartbeats; her breath wills her heart to give more, to keep beating, to enable her to run to the thing that makes it beat; that gives it life, that makes life worth living. The thing that holds the joy and sorrow of a million lives lived. The only thing that enables her to focus clearly, but in a way that distorts all she has seen before; a distortion, as it turns out, that is her truth. This amazing thing that has shown her she has been hidden all along in plain sight, masquerading in some grand ball, where everyone else has come as themselves; feigning interest in this or that, going along with things because they were normal and she didn’t know there was any other way. This thing has freed her from that. Ripped off the mask and illuminated the beauty underneath.
It hits her, just now, in this moment in the woods… she feels beautiful. She has never felt anything like it. Confidence. Worth. It is new, and she owes it to this incredible thing she is running toward. Her throat burns, her tears have obscured her vision, but she won’t stop. She can’t, she needs to reach where she is headed. There she is safe; there she can live, can breathe, can laugh, can cry, can scream, can whisper, can moan. There she can give into desire. There, no one else exists, just her and this gift. Finally, she sees a faint smoke emitted from a small chimney in the distance, which peaks through the trees like a beacon of light. This oak smoke she has smelled on her dress days after, an earthy smell that transports her to a place of ecstasy.
Almost there. She stops abruptly, smooths her skirts, tries to steady her breath, but it is far too frenzied. She wipes her eyes, glances down at her reddened hands which have numbed in the wind; they are shaking. Adrenaline courses through her body untamed, like a winding, overflowing river in the Amazon after a rainstorm. Ann, she says to herself. Ann, calm down.
Her last step is to the charming, wooden door of the chaumiere. She gazes up at the moss roof, and imagines it enveloping her, holding her safely and securely. She knocks on the door, hears strong, purposeful footsteps and smiles at the sound. The door swings open. She exhales, ‘Anne’. Glistening, wise brown eyes greet hers and a deep, reassuring voice responds, ‘Ann. Come in, get warm.’
