Eulogy 1 v1

I took notice of the wafting scent of ink and paper hidden in leather-bound books immediately upon entering the library, where I, much to the chagrin of my indifference, saw my mother, a statue of resolution, looking into the forest of cedars and ashes beyond the sun-streaked panes. I, looking away from my mother, found myself in wonder at the preponderance of knowledge and skill held within the beaten bindings as she continued her meditations, focusing only on the world within the boundaries of the window frame.

"Have you come for more than a moment or will you be leaving in time?"

Her voice came out as hardly more than a whisper, almost impossible to make out even in the deadened room.

"I came to see you."

My throat quivered, with the youth and abandon of a boy not more than fourteen, his consciousness just starting to fully form, and I observed the tepid movement of her shoulders in response to what I had done.

"No, I think not. You'll come for what you will and go back along the way you came."

The words punctuated the air with surprising force for their low register, contracting the space to that of the eye of a needle.

I scurried to her side, with the fervor of a mole to its burrow after being hit by the sun, attempting to grab her hand or the sleeve of her plum dress, if she found the hand to be overly familiar. I brushed the silken arm of her gown as she stole it away with a casual flick, that to the outside observer, would seem entirely a trick of the eye. She remained rooted in the trees of which she had become a member, her robes even matching the dark emeralds and oaks outside, and didn't even acknowledge that I had made a motion by which to gain her mind. Her glass-white eyes, refusing to land on any object but the trees, returned not a note of contentment or ray of warmth, as I looked on with barely a trace of revolusion in my own self-indulgent mind.

"Trul--"

Her quiet cool manner cut through my voice with contempt

"No."

The silver and white eyes didn't drift for even a moment as I retracted my pleas, feeling a fool for even attempting to divert her, and my ears blushed crimson and burned, in that way that they always do, as if I had committed some crime. I brushed the hair from my cheek, savoring the feeling of some skin upon my face, and looked up at her eyes once more, grown more glassy in only the long moment, and they flicked pointedly and wounded me with their sharp indistinction of my person from the surrounding couches. My gaze found the hard brown boards at my feet with ease where the grains and fine lines became readily apparent.

I attempted to wiggle my toes, my feet not feeling entirely my own, and found them paralized in some ethereal grip from which I couldn't seem to free myself and instead, failing to find that release, drew my eyes forward into those same trees. Her glass eyes moved not even a fraction of the width of a page, by which she was surrounded but had not the presence or mind to care, and her lips thinly pursed and a whimper of a sound escaped.

"Do you see?"

Calmer than before she mouthed more words but they couldn't hold the air as I, with my limited ability to percieve, strained to hear but could only get the slight rustling of leaves. Those leaves whispered too but I, in my youthful navite, couldn't quite translate them either so, with frustration and burning ears, I let my gaze hit the floor once more welcoming it as friend.

"No, how could you."

Her words came out, without any suggestion of question, and hit me across my face causing me to very joyfully break from my newly sprung roots. With the same zeal as the mole, I retreated further into my burrow finding my place near an old rack of novels whose bindings had faded so severly the titles had long ceased to be more than suggestions. My hands reached for one of my favorites, sitting precariously upon a shelf from which my short arm was only able to gain purchase while on my tip-toes, and caressed the comparitively intact cover where a man stood with crumbling posture stood against the long faces of mustachoed men.

Opening the book to the dog-eared page, at which I had previously ended my journey, I looked upon the tightly packed words across both pages, scanning the text first as a cursory attempt to gain understanding. I proceeded to dive deeply with Rodion and began to examine my own place within her forest and came to a less than surprising realization that I might not be covered in bark or leaves. I happened upon the start of the trial and another preponderance came to me when, exmaining the evidence against our protaginist laid bare, onlookers and jurors had to confront the truths that exposed both his innocence and guilt. This caused me, in my literary stupor, to dive further into my own self-conscious mind where I, believing myself to hold at least two modicums of blame, arrived at a recollection of a coffee spilled out upon the Persian rug that had once decorated the wall of our foyer. The words at that point ceased to be more than symbols on the page as my mind dug deeply to escape that moment in my young life. The words continued their march along the shaded paths of the forest above and I, with the lack of observation native to the creatures that would normally inhabit my landscape, failed to notice the light at the end of my tunnel.

I happened upon the action of the heat of the mug causing my hand, barely able to circumnavigate the width of the cup, to smart and release the beverage from a few feet above the ground. I watched in muffled horror as the muddy liquid tinged with notes of sugar and vanilla plummeted downward milimeter by milimeter my mind racing feet in the future. Those single seconds, before the gravity took away any attempt at reconcilation, hung with me as I sat blinded by the morning light to which I was unaccustomed. My eyes burned and my whiskers twitched maddeningly in a way that I, again to my chagrin, had become accustomed. I could see the large pile of blameful pages full of charges that could be continously laid on a lectern where a gavel would pound for my silence. The small splash of bitter, to my tastes at that age, drink against the ornate weavings could be heard like a tree falling in the forest and my mother, so attuned to the trees, was the first observer.

"Why?"

Her voice lanced through the air that the rays of light had just occupied and hit me with the force of that same gavel upon an oaken desk. The white eyes found me for only a second but scorched me in their morning glory causing my vision to flash so bright not a shape could be discerned.

"I di--"

She cut me off with a single instanteous blow without a passing glance.

"I'm tired, too tired to hear your excuses."

My whiskers were severed and I lost my only sense through which to percieve the action from which I had derieved this entirely justifiable manner. I could only blindly acknowledge my own sin and attempt the retreat into the darkness that I so craved with only a fleeting glance toward light I had a cursory belief should feel warm. However I was summarily hoisted fully into the icy light through single words spoken with temperment of one wholy devoid of compassion towards the creature dwarfed by their stature.

"No"

A single ray.

"You are not."

More light kept my vision opaque and clouded.

"Matilde. Take this away from me."

A firm unyielding vice closed around my miniscule fading form as I, through many attempts to wiggle myself from the prison, was dragged out of the light and into a iron cage lit by a single sconce mounted on the wall.

"You really should not have done that. You'll have done it for both of us."

Creaked the ancient voice in a tone of judgement honed by ages of condesention toward creatures between the ranks of stature that existed between a giant and a mole.

"She only wants it with enough heat that will make it hard for me to flip my pages after it's been delivered."

I squealed pleadingly.

"Nonsense! She likes it how she always has and you will deliver it as such and you will have or have not your precious fantasies regardless."

The stiff boney grip dragged me up into the cage toward a heavy metal bound door at the end of a long corridor where I colud see, through the small window on the door, naught but an empty wall marred by only one other window. Thrown into the room I was able to make out only another wall outside the room and looking out, holding exuberance for a potential dynamic scene, was disappointed to find only a view of that wall and the stone courtyard below.

A singular wooden bed and straw mattress were situated in the corner with a small dresser being the only other occupant of the space of which I knew instinctively held no object of interest within.

"You'll stay in here until you understand the pain you've caused."

The voice croaked and then faded, the final change to the space being the hinges of the door creaking and the echoing plunk of the key in the lock. Knowing my sentence I looked through the window and the outside light burned my light one last time, vision fading into a blackness from which I would not soon leave.

The words in my vision appeared again through the darkness and their march ended and I realized, again to my chagrin, had to retrace my path to the fork on the road from which I'd lost my way. I followed along with Rodion as he rode his way through that forest in which we both had born ourselves into, with little intent other than ignorance, attempting to find our way free.

I found myself upon a leather couch, smelling of hide and coffee, in the opressive room and for an eternity sat with my defient hero only stopping to consider the purpose of his original actions and how he had not realized his own blame.

"Matilde, take this away."

Ears burned when the words quietly but forcefully interupted my travels and I knew, with a not so quiet indifference, that my second home was awaiting my arrival. My older brother was ripped from my hands and thrown into a corner shaded by an unlit ornately decorated stainglass lamp and I, with that same disguised indifference, struggled to hold back a single gasp. The slight gesture could not be totally withheld however.

"Your fantasies won't excuse your behavior."

That same croaking reverberated through the room echoing off the faded covers. The hand sprung upon me again and crushed my arm while almost ripping my shoulder away from the rest of my body with such force that I could only resist if I had had a desire to risk my own injury. We together trod a different path out of the room and the views of the timbers toward that same lifeless burrow to which I had been accustomed. I found my bed, dresser, and lastly my single view again through which the same stone courtyard awaited where my Rodion did not wait with only small dead leaves occasionally visiting through whipping currents of air.