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Marius · #1 [ ] 03-29-2006, 01:23 AM

Maria

“Maria,” she called. She, that is my mother, entered my dim room, with white gauzy curtain, a pink four-poster bed, hardwood floors, and a wide bay window at which I observed the scenery through. Through the side door to this room she entered. Through the door that always squeaked. As if for some reason she found that it was necessary for her to alert me when she came. I don’t know whether she thought I might be doing something bad, or I don’t wish to be caught doing. I know no reason why she does it, but every time she does it I wonder why she would do such a silly thing. I turned to her and smiled. “Hello Mother,” I called, jumping from the pillow that I had been sitting upon while looking out the window at the sunrise. My long skirt caught the edge of it and caused it to tumble down with a barely audible thud. I wheeled around on the tip of my toes, the skintight slippers crinkling lightly to leave a permanent crease I would later notice.

I bent down to pick the pillow up and threw it back upon the wide seal, yet something else caught my eye. A man was standing in the window, shaking snow from his long raven black hair, tossing it around as a lion in the books I read tossed its mane. The snow, instead of falling to the ground, wafted instead to land upon the thick dark green jacket with a fur collar he was wearing. He looked at me, bringing his head up so that the hair fell away from his kind deep gray eyes.

He smiled then, a smile brief and warm. It took another call from my mother to call me from the stupor I was in. I smiled dumbly in response, revealing a perfectly straight white row of teeth in return. But it had been much too late of a response for he had already turned away. I frowned, for the man had truly caught my eye. I turned once again to my mother, replacing my frown of disappointment with a fake smile instantaneously. She smiled in return, one of those smiled where you purse your lips and draw them thin in disapproval. “Are you ready for church?” she asked, looking me over with an eye of critique.

“Yes mother I am,” I retorted in fury barely audible. Clearly she disapproved of my attire.

“Well then let us get a move on, or we shall be late for the jokes the Reverend tells,” She ordered, her voice wavering slightly with awe.

I had always thought she was particularly fond of the Reverend for some reason, but I could never draw any conclusions. There had always been particular looks they shared either at the small general store near the center of town, or after Mass as we exited and he was cleaning up his supplies. They had been very odd looks, but I had thought nothing of them while I was younger. But now I formulated elaborate schemes of affair and passion. Yet he was married, and she a widow, my father had died five years ago from a horse kick to the head, it had hurt her badly. Yet, ever since the Reverend and my mother starting sharing those looks, she had not been as sad.

She turned away from me, her simple black Victorian lace dress shifting strangely to then settle back in its original position as if quicksilver parting briefly to reveal some inner wonder before then righting it’s self to once again hide everything. The black of morning, I felt was shield for my mother, to hide behind from all the troubles of the world. For five years she had worn them, all the time being cold and distant to everyone, even I, her daughter. I stuck my tongue out at the skirt, mocking it for the pain it had given years ago before I had adjusted to the change in her.

I unwillingly got up at the backward glance she threw at me, as she made sure I was going to follow. I looked down at my slippers; I saw the crease in them now. I sighed it had taken two months for the leather crafter to make them from the soft cowhide, and now they were practically ruined. Maybe they wont notice, I thought knowing that they would. The “they,” was the other girls at school, who had always wanted my slippers. They told me so, asking me the certain design and hide. I had told them they were made out of the last bit of a special hide from a Russian calf, at that they had frowned and walked away. I would surely be commended for this small but noticeable crease.

My mother too then looked down to see what my glum downward stares were centered on. “Dear,” she said softly, a look of disappointment spreading across her squat face, and penetrating her pencil thin brow line. “Why must you always ruin things so beautiful?” she sighed, bitterness distinctly present in her voice.

I knew what she was referring to, the dress. For years she has held me responsible for the ruining of the exquisite French dress. In the fifth year of my life my mother had gotten a pink silk French dress, with a trimming of scarlet lace in the pattern of roses. That night was her anniversary with my father, the tenth year of their marriage. She left me home alone while she went to shop for dinner items and a present for my father while he was at work. She had drilled it into my mind not to touch the dress, not to touch the dress. Yet the thing was of such exquisite beauty I could not resist trying it on. So with my short, stubby and at the time fat and creamy white legs, I wobbled over to the closet and opened it. I positioned a wide stool under the rod the hanger was upon and stood on my tiptoes. I managed to knock it down and catch it, securing the heavily polished alder frame in my tiny hands, and then I slipped it over my small head taking it off the wooden frame before doing so. The thing was much too long for me, but I did not care. I was imagining that I was a princess and I jumped down to the ground and started to dance with my invisible prince. However I tripped and fell into the table, were a bowl of cake mix was sitting until my mother got home and put it into a pan. It wobbled for a second on the edge, the blue ceramic tipping wildly them arching back and falling forward once again.

The bowl had then fallen upon me, the gooey mass of butter, milk, eggs, and flour covering my whole body and the dress too. I looked down at the dress, afraid. When I saw that it was stained I had cried, then took it off shoving away my emotions in a panicked frenzy. I had rushed to the sink and tried to wash it off, but the eggs had already done their damage. In panic, I placed it back into the place I had got it from and ran to my room to hid under my bed. When Mother got home she found everything out with the simple power of observation. I had been forced to go to bed an hour earlier each night without any sweets for a year.

My mother sent me another of her fierce glares, seeing that I was not moving toward the door. I smiled, falsely sympathetic at her, my eyes full of defiance that she did not notice. I started toward the door glumly, the negative feelings still lingering between us. My mother walked out the old oak door, not the squeaky alder door through which she had entered. I followed closely behind her like a chick behind a hen through the homey pantry and elaborate dinning room to the heavy polished hardwood door. As we entered the cool outside still wet with morning dew, I sighed deeply relishing the beautiful morning. Above us the predawn sky shone with majestic colors. The red and purples dominated over the blues and yellows, creating many different shades and variations of the dominating colors. It looked much like the palette of an artist, which the softly falling snow now amplified. The already fallen snow on the trees and ground mirrored the colors of the sky, dying them the many colors and creating a seeming dreamland.

I turned to my mother to see if she too was admiring the snowy wonder. Yet, she looked straight ahead. It was as if she was, and she was, blocking out the rest of the world as she reveled in her thoughts. I scowled at her for the disrespect that she was showing to the beautiful natural spectacle. She glanced over her shoulder at me to make sure that I was coming, a look I was growing sick and tired of, then motioned for me to hurry along with her eyes. I grudgingly followed, being careful to avoid the piles of snow that littered +the once clean walkway that was compiled of spread out gravel and small river stones. Once or twice my feet stepped over a patch of brittle ice to issue a brief unsettling crackle before the cold of the snow cut through the thin skintight red leather of the slippers to freeze my toes.

I whimpered softly, distraught slightly at my suffering on account of my mother and her unsettling obsession with Church. I managed to avoid the other unpleasant patches of crackling ice that was periodically strewn about the way to the temple of Christian worship. Clearly visible was the spire that held the ever-bearing gold plated cross, the soft snow lay about on it’s up turned arms as if offering the fluffily white substance to the god that’s symbol it was. A few moments passed as I stood observing the slightly majestic sight before I continued on my path, still looking up. The moment my hand touched the gilded handle of the hefty oak door, the cross’ snow was died crimson by the light of dawn. My pale white hand came to my mouth in brief horror, the ominous sign striking a deep cold into my heart as a brief gasp escaped. Flustered and pondering the meaning of the horrid event, I entered the palace of worship.

The wall of mind numbing warmth and quite crashed into me like a tidal wave, destroying the soothing chill that the softly falling snow had instilled in me and replacing it with a sticky warmth that was sickening. Shuddering, I tried to shrug the humid wetness off, but the hardened grasp of the church was already upon me, it was one I would never fully escape. Grudgingly, I followed my mother down the crimson walkway of a rug with golden embroidery in the shapes of eloquent gothic crosses whose pointed tops led the way to the altar. As we passed the heavily varnished oak pews, which always smelled of some ghastly substance, which I could only guess was the varnish it’s self, I looked over the grey stone walls. Majestic tapestries with golden tassels, bright metallic thread and thin translucent ribbon, which looked rather itchy like one of the beautiful dresses that my mother had me wear at my father’s funeral and the following couple of months. Even the stained glass, which was normally beautiful to me at any other place, was offensive and flamboyant. It was a wonder that I allowed my mother to bring me to this place as horrid as it was, but I did not feel like suffering through her guilt trips.

I turned my chin up, letting the harsh light of the chandelier grace my wide and prominent check bones and to generally lighten my face with the bright light of the stick candles. My auburn hair absorbed the light with eloquence, becoming light and bright with each strand which absorbed the hazy glow. The atmosphere transformed my simple green skirt and earthy brown tunic top into the garb of a noble. The brass rings that outlined the holes that the thin leather cord, which tightened the low cut neckline, ran through gleamed like gold to add to the aura of grace and majesty.

Imbued with this particular beauty, which came over anyone who stepped into the gaudy house of worship, I followed my mother to our customary pew in the front of the giant antechamber. Our particular gilded bench of oak was positioned right in front of the podium at which Reverend Hem stood and delivered his sermons in a bantering tone, maybe it was customary to all men of the cloth but it was very annoying the tone in which he spoke, as if the bible was his secret joke. But my Mother adored him, and that made me instill some amount of respect, however vulgar he seemed to me.

Soon other figures dressed in their bright Sunday’s best filed in through the double stained oak doors. I sat on the pew’s bench heavily, choosing not to watch the prim ladies with their pink lace umbrella or the placid men in their suits and hats enter. They all disgusted me; all of them with their red robust faces and pinched waists. These were creatures of such materialistic values that even the men wore corsets to broaden their chests and powdered faces. It seemed to me that these people belonged in Classic England, not in the present era. But I don’t know, people other places in the world may still wear that type of garb, I have only the knowledge of a young woman growing up in a secluded town with no knowledge of the outside world, so I guess I have no right to judge.

But never the less, these materialistic and disgusting people took their customary positions in the back row of hard and articulate benches, their unjustly jubilant faces peeking out from behind the back of the other three rows of pews. I gave them a glancing look from over my shoulder, and turned back to face forward. My mother was flipping through a heavily dog-eared Bible, the hard enamel casing cracked as her square finger tips gripped on to it and with the other equally boxy hand, flipped the yellow stained paper pages with a bit of saliva she collected on the tips of her fingers by licking them. Her heavily creased mouth silently made the words of a passage in the Exodus, one I care not to mention. This ritualistic habit of hers was more than mildly disgusting, but she did not even notice that she did so, if I had done something so atrocious then I would have been corrected, yet my cynical sense of humor prevented me to say so.

My eyes caught a flitting movement near the podium. A tiny garter snake had found it’s way into the church and now was slithering up the gold frosted crucifix that was nailed to the front of the wooden stand. It’s tiny green body wrapped around the gold colored symbol of Christ, and it draped its head around the arms of him, and yawned a toothless yawn. It made sense to me that even this small creature could sense the boredom that the man who just entered the room brought with him.

Reverend Hem would have been considered a strikingly good looking man if he was not so dull. He had a special leanness to him, one that hardened his jaw line and gave him a generally muscular look, even though he had never worked hard a day in his life. The scant peppering of gray among his shinning brown hair was beautiful, and did not make him look old, it perhaps even added to his attractiveness. But, his small pensive brown eyes told of the abhorring prudence and utter boringness of his personality, and his thin pinched lips told the same.

The light of the chandelier, as it had been designed to, lit him up fully. It looked as if he was radiating with holy light, when in reality it was just the affects of the candle light upon the golden threads that were interwoven with his white cassock. And the blue rays that grew around the cross that took up most of the front of the priest garb, was also outlined in gold, adding a strange tint to the color, as if it was a glowworm.

His bright pink tongue darted out between his thin lips, preparing for the beginning of his speech. I looked behind me, my dark tresses falling like water over my shoulder to lie over the back on the bench. The rest of the pews had been filled while I was observing the small garter snake twine it’s way around the cross. Most of these people were normal country folk, who in Christian goodness came to Mass diligently every Sunday, dressed in their finest town cloths. These people were not the town folk that sickened me, but the ones I felt sorry for. For their opportunities were limited, as well as their education, and following the believes of the populace they were Christian, at least to the best of their abilities. I knew however, that a few were Heathens, that they just came here to avoid persecution, and napped, like I did, through the whole boring thing.

Now the boring thing I reference in all totality, had begun. The Reverend cleared his throat with a sharp, “Ahem” and the muttering in the room stopped and all eyes snapped forward, a few opened, and we all stared at the man of god in front of us. From under the podium’s top, he extracted his copy of the Holy Book. A giant black tome, with the word “Bible” Embossed on it’s front in gold, the thing had yellowed pages and even from my distance of at least five feet I could smell it’s mustiness. It had, I thought in muse to my self, been around since the death of Christ himself. With his strong, and visibly heavy tendoned, finger, the Reverend Hem opened the front cover of the expansive tome. Looking to the sheaf of papers strewn about on the podium’s face, he started to leaf through the book.

The ultra-thin paper leaves passed under his fingers with an audible crinkling sound that reverberated through the cavernous antechamber, and caused those few who where sensitive to such a sound, because in a way it was similar to nails upon a chalkboard, cringed visibly. He found the page he was looking for, and straightened out his posture, his back snapping straight and his chin jutting toward the roof. His pensive brown eyes shown with his “Godly” authority, and his thick brown hair shown in the chandelier.

“To start today’s sermon,” Hem said, his voice an annoying drone in my ear. “We shall read an expert from the Commandments.” He put his pointer finger on the heavy tome in front of him, atop the line of text he intended to start with. “Exodus 22:16

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16 "If a man seduces a virgin who is not pledged to be married and sleeps with her, he must pay the bride-price, and she shall be his wife. 17 If her father absolutely refuses to give her to him, he must still pay the bride-price for virgins.
18 "Do not allow a sorceress to live.
19 "Anyone who has sexual relations with an animal must be put to death.
20 "Whoever sacrifices to any god other than the LORD must be destroyed. [d]
21 "Do not mistreat an alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in Egypt.
22 "Do not take advantage of a widow or an orphan. 23 If you do and they cry out to me, I will certainly hear their cry. 24 My anger will be aroused, and I will kill you with the sword; your wives will become widows and your children fatherless.
25 "If you lend money to one of my people among you who is needy, do not be like a moneylender; charge him no interest. [e] 26 If you take your neighbor's cloak as a pledge, return it to him by sunset, 27 because his cloak is the only covering he has for his body. What else will he sleep in? When he cries out to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate.
28 "Do not blaspheme God [f] or curse the ruler of your people.
29 "Do not hold back offerings from your granaries or your vats. [g]
******"You must give me the firstborn of your sons. 30 Do the same with your cattle and your sheep. Let them stay with their mothers for seven days, but give them to me on the eighth day.
31 "You are to be my holy people. So do not eat the meat of an animal torn by wild beasts; throw it to the dogs.”
He paused, and allowed his gaze to roam through the pews. His dark rodent like eyes gleamed wetly and almost menacingly. He took a deep breath, his white cassock puffed out as his toned chest expanded, the sheet of light slipping down his body, and then rising back up. The quote was most unnerving, like he was expecting us to do or say something. I was on the edge of consciousness, my bright eyelids flickering sporadically growing more and more frequent.
“Don’t let a sorceress live!” He cried, his voice for one spiking to a high instead of the monotone he usually addressed those gathered for mass. “Our time is rife with witches. Rife with these sorceresses, who ruin communities such as the one we live in.” He paused for a moment, his hands rising lightly on the surface of the podium, his fingers splayed across the smooth wooden surface. His eyes roaming to each of our faces again, and I could feel the Pagans grow afraid, that they might be made targets, but he spent an equal amount of time on them as the rest.
“It is your duty as Christians, to report these vile sorceresses to this church and to me. So that their filth can be removed, and our community made safe.” He paused again, pensive eyes gleaming with his “Godly” passion. His thin lips gleaming with a thick layer of clear saliva, a small trickle snaking from the corner of his mouth to his cheek, it looked a lot like the trail of a slug. My god, this man was revolting, but handsome. It is a shame that such looks are wasted on such a soul. Taking the edge of his cassock sleeve, he wiped off the clear trail of sticky liquid quickly and forcefully. He snapped up straight once again, like he had found the loose thread of thought he had before been following, and with a small beat of pride continued following.
“And if you don’t,” Hem’s voice had once again regained is monotone, his eyes taking the dim unfruitful glimmer they regularly secreted. “The damnation of the lord shall be upon your soul.”