Cold

“Cold”

Mother’s voice rattled with fury and flooded the house. It crept into the attic where I sat in the dark with Oпекун.  He had vacant eyes with no irises or pupils, a barren head, and a blue complexion untainted by freckles or blemishes. It was the appearance of an unfinished sculpture, made of a toddler’s blue play-do, as if his creator had gotten bored with the subject and left him to be forgotten.

The floors quaked as mother stormed up the steps. Oпекун and I focused our gazes upon the attic door as it swung open, slamming against the wall. She dragged me down the stairs by my hair. My lower back slammed off of each step until finally reaching the bottom. She shoved me through the basement door, and I tumbled down a second flight of stairs. 

I could tell some of my ribs were broken, but it was alright. I was hers to break; she excersized that right often. I kind of liked the feeling, anyway. I suppose it was similar to the satisfaction most children experienced from an embrace; it was familiar, welcomed, comforting. There was also a merciless ambiance- the cold, damp air coiling around my body like a serpent..

Oпекун appeared beside me as I slipped from consciousness. He was always there for me and took away the cold. He never did much to hurt or help me, but it was just nice to not be alone. Just seeing Oпекун was like wrapping a blanket of security around my body. Though we had spent years together, and it was only him with whom I felt connected, I had never heard him utter a single syllable. He wasn’t much for conversation, but what was there to say?

I started school in the fall. Discomfort plagued the first few weeks. I didn’t play like the other children and never followed directions. Teachers had little success attempting to capture my attention. It were as though I lived in a constant state of unconsciousness- like the whole world was outside of my window, but it wasn’t real; it wasn’t part of me. Then there were the visits:

I remember walking into the room for the first time. Stark white paint coated the brick walls.  The room was desolate, excluding a man in a black suit. 

I closed the door behind me, and he glanced in my direction.

“Пожалуйста, Anya, озьмите место (Please, Anya, take a seat).” That’s when it all began.

Each day, I'd draw while answering the man's many questions- questions about math, chemistry, phsyics. I usually drew objects-things without any emotions- things without any feeling- things with which I could relate. I drew lines, shapes, and scribbles. I drew Oпекун. After each session, he would collect the drawings and place them in his briefcase. More and more people joined the audience each session. They were spectators to a circus act, and I- but a voiceless trapeze artest plunging towards her death.

            One day, I came and there was only one person in the room. She wasn’t the usual, but one of the 5 observers. There was already a piece of paper and a pencil in front of my seat, and she told me to draw my family. Nobody had requested a subject before.

“Кто научил тебя, что ты знаешь (Who has taught you what you know)?”

“What do you mean?”

"�'ы понимаете, много ещей. Как ы узнали, что ы знаете (Your knowledge is almost prophetic; how have you learned it)?”

“Nobody taught me.”

“�'ы должны кое-чему научились от с оих родителей. Как го орит один из них (You must have learned something from your parents; how have you learned to speak)?”

“I listen from the attic. Sometimes I could hear my mother teaching my sisters how to read. That’s how I learned to speak; but, as you know, I’ve never developed the skills necessary to translate the written word. Any other knowledge I’ve obtained just seems logical.”

She was quiet for a moment and I continued drawing. It wasn’t as detailed as the rest, but I didn’t know much about my family. Instead, I drew four women and stopped. I wasn’t sure how many sisters I had, nor did I want to. She retrieved the paper, asked where my father was, and laid the picture back onto the table.

Without a response, I continued drawing. In the remaining space, I drew a house on top of a hill. The grass was blue and the house was nothing more than the typical black box with a triangular roof. However, it hadn’t a door nor any windows.

She disrupted my concentration, while sliding the picture from under my hand. The crayon left a black line from the house to the edge of the paper. She handed it back and I began to continue drawing. Her voice crept into the silence like smoke curling from a chimney, as she repeated herself.

“�"де - аш отец (Where’s your father)?”

It reminded me of the old cuckoo clock in the attic, which had once been hanging on the wall downstairs. Every so often, it would chime and the little birdie would monotonously, “Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo!” until one day, when the bird had begun its cycle, I heard a crash and mother storming up the stairs. I quickly shielded my eyes, as beams of light burst through the newly open door. After another crash, the light vanished into the darkness, and the sound of mother’s feet echoing down the stairs subsided.

Once my eyes had adjusted to the darkness, I saw the figure mother had placed onto the floor. My hands stretched towards the object. Something pierced through my flesh, as my fingers prodded the surface. The protective glass covering over the face of the clock had been shattered, and the two hands had been ripped from the center. The little birdie never again cuckooed.

“Anya?”

I looked at the paper, and noticed a large, dark scribble where my hand had been resting.

“Yes,” I replied.

“�"де - аш отец, Анья? �'ы можете при лечь его для меня? (Where’s your father, Anya? Can you draw him for me?)”

To be honest, I didn’t know how he looked. He rarely came home, and, when he did, it was after the household had been taken by slumber. However, I could hear his feet trudge to each bedroom, hear him kiss each daughter goodnight, and see his boots pass the attic door as he went to bed. I longed to open the door_ just to put a face to the man called “father.” Was he even my father?

There wasn’t any horizontal room left on the page, but there was above and below. I sketched a man into the ground, below the four womens’ feet. She gave me a puzzled look.

“�'ы никогда не думали о смерти ( Have you ever thought of death)?” She asked.

“Я думал обо сем (I've thought of everything).”

Her next question surprised me. I hardly heard it, but I watched the words fall from her lips, radiating a deep sapphire color. There was an eerie feeling in the air, and it hovered over our conversation.

“Что бы ы предпочли сжечь жи ьем или заморозить до смерти? (Would you prefer to burn alive or freeze to death)?”

“I would burn.”

“Что (why)?”

I remembered being left in the snow for hours, when I was three. The pain was bad enough then, but when Oпекун helped me inside, I could barely walk. Mother was boiling water on the stove and threw it onto my flesh. It normally would have just been a burn, but the cold intensified the pain. It was an easy decision.

“I feel there isn’t much of a difference. After being in the snow for so long, the wind starts to feel like flames licking your skin from the bone. However, blood freezes at such low temperatures, and you can feel every moment of it- the slush pulling through your veins like a string of glass. Never have I been beyond that point, but it’s hard to imagine what comes after that. It's like you said, ‘Burn alive,’ ‘Freeze to death;’ to be cold is to be alone. To be alone is to be dead. No, loneliness is much worse than death, and I would rather be surrounded by flames, than cast into the snow.”

“Never have I met anyone so unique, Anya. I imagine your circumstances must be unique, as well; but there’s nothing that can be done_ not by us. You have the body of a five year old, and a mind that few people ever obtain. I wish you didn't; but then you would be just like everybody else, wouldn't you?” She gathered her things, then walked out of the room and from my life.

I sat there in the stillness of time, awaiting her return; but she didn't_ nobody did. I could see my reflection in the glass across the table. I had never seen it before, not truly. I had long blond hair, almost like the halo encompassing the sun's corona. My face: whiter than the cold winter blanket, plating the ground. My eyes: my eyes were an odd grayish-blue color. It was a color neither night nor day, a color neither blue nor red. 

I watched as a spider crawled down the wall. Its contorted body quickly maneuvered around the cracks. It was a disgusting creature, so abnormal.

As my eyes passed over the wall, Oпекун crossed into my vision. He seemed to have appeared from nowhere. Oпекун moved across the room and approached the chair in which the woman had been, previously, sitting.

 I looked at Oпекун, and, for the first time in my life, I realized that he had no mouth. “You never say anything.” Even the despiration saturating my voice garnered no responce. I left in the silence, but Oпекун stayed behind.

I watched the children as they played with building blocks and baby dolls. They were always laughing and having a good time. None of them had any major scratches, burns, or bruises. There were neither scars nor frowns, upon their faces. The woman was right; my circumstances were unique. One morning in mother’s house was filled with more turmoil than any of these children had experienced, in their entire lives. Also, I wasn’t the first to leave, or the last to come back. They had never left in the first place. There was something very different about things.

The bell of dismissal chimed and the students scrambled to collect their belongings. They were all so excited to return home.

Once I had returned to the house, Oпекун and I sat in the attic together. I looked at the things surrounding me- things in which I used to find beauty- things I considered my family: an old cuckoo clock with the hands missing, a pair of cracked lamps without any lampshades, a trunk containing mothers yellow wedding dress. All of these things were flawed, damaged goods. Mother had stored me away with the rest of the junk she yearned to forget. That’s what I was to her: junk.

I looked at Oпекун: Oпекун, who was so faithful, Oпекун who was always there for me, my only companion, Oпекун. I could never see him as junk. He was the only thing that had meaning. His deep лазу́рь color allowed me to fall into comfort, like dropping into the ocean. His silence allowed me to escape into deep thought. His aura was the fire to my body and to my life. Oпекун kept my heart beating. He was to be with me, until flesh rotted from my bones; to be nothing more than myself.

“Never could I look forward to our departure, but I wish more for you. You’re better than this. Burn alive or freeze to death. If I burn, we burn together. If I freeze, you must leave, and take the fire with you.”  He did what everybody else had done since I had taken my first breath of life; Oпекун left me, and I was cold.