Benches: Chapter 1.1 — “Through the Branches”

The harsh bite of winter is in the air. Bare limbs of an ancient oak shudder and creak in the breeze. Looking up, it is almost as if some maddened surgeon scarred the heavens in a delirium of despair and anguish.

Perhaps he felt the need to mar the pristine surface of those smooth nimbostratus clouds, I muse. Gently, I rock beneath the branches, watching the spaces between dark lines on a blank slate form and distort. Ethereal images of lamp posts, corals, and archipelagos flash by, all in the same shade of dull gray. I close my eyes and listen to the few leaves rustling above. Did his scalpel slip from trembling hands? Was he distracted by the distant rumble of thunder? Perhaps he was just having a bad day.

The last few rays of sunlight fall weakly upon my face, doing little more than to remind me that nightfall is swiftly approaching. Does the patient yearn for the cover of darkness to conceal her mutilated perfection? Does she weep silent tears when she realizes that she will never again be whole, not really; that once flawlessness is despoiled it can never be completely restored?  Poor Heavens.

I scold myself at the direction my thoughts have taken me. There is no such thing as perfection. To exist in this world is to be imperfect. I scold myself some more for coming to such a bleak, albeit true conclusion. I tell myself to stop before I spiral uncontrollably into an overly philosophical self debate on the obvious, yet depressing state of my life.

When a voice that is not my own answers back, I realize that I am not alone.

les branches by ~andrea-h on deviantART