#15 - Don't Cry

Today’s words: Reduce, Elytroid, Design, Foxtail

Word count: 374

Summary: 'If she didn’t cry, there was no admitting that anything bad had happened.'

This one wrote itself as I typed. Was originally going to be a poem.

Mayumi Terada 'Rocking Chair and Window'

She sits in a rocking chair by the window, one leg hung over the arm, the other foot gently pushing the chair back and forth. She rocks so that she’s barely moving; the faster she moves, the more she’ll realise that that she’s trying to comfort herself. Her mother would hug tighter when something bad happened; she hated that – those hugs made her cry. What her mother thought would reduce the pain only heightened it.

All is silent, aside from the sound of the rockers rolling against the wooden floor and the odd bird outside heading to its nest to for the evening. She loves this – quiet. The atmosphere surrounds her peacefully and she closes her eyes to drown out sight. She didn’t need to see anything, not any of the furniture, the ornaments, the worn-out rug, no, there was no point in staring at them because if she looked at them in a certain way, she wouldn’t be able to stop crying. Her heart was cased like a gold beetle’s elytroid and the slightest flutter would reveal a fragile set of wings, wings that didn’t want to be exposed because they were so fragile, so easy to rip off.

This was her design: if she didn’t cry, there was no admitting that anything bad had happened. All she had to do was hold it together.

After a while, something breaks the silence. Her eyes open and she looks down at where the sound came from.

She looked at the gold charm bracelet that had knocked against the chair’s arm. It was the tiniest of knocks, but it made her throat close up and her eyes sting. The charm facing her was a small foxtail made out of solid gold. She’d always said that she didn’t like rings, so he had gotten her this – part of her favourite animal to carry around with her on the only bracelet that she always wore.

“A vixen needs a beautiful tail.”

She hurriedly unclasped the bracelet with jittery fingers and threw it across the room, flinching as it hit the floor.

Bringing both feet onto the seat of the chair, she hid her face in her knees, ignoring the fact that they had begun to get wet.