Dancing With Winter

• Eilish Law-davis, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2014

Dancing With Winter

What has happened to you?
I pause.
My mind drifts slowly.

Singing, I stand in a field of silvery wheat which dances from my feet to my waist.
I am five again.
I can smell the scent of roses and sweet peas in the air. The sky is cloudless, a brilliant blue. The field is still until the wind blows, rustling the leaves on the ground. I feel confident in my faded denim jeans, red checked shirt and brown boots. I am covered in a layer of mud, dirt and sand but I still feel like a princess.
I start to dance. I dance until the blue sky turns red, pink and purple.
The wind blows lavender and jasmine scents towards me.
I am dancing with Winter.

What happened to me – that beautiful, confident girl who was once, but is not now?
Who am I that I have to cover myself in a layer of make-up and still not feel like a princess, when once I could be covered in mud and still feel special and wanted?
What happened?
Society ruined me.
That beast of a person to torment someone to the point of death. The ring of the gun firing into one’s head should be with them forever.
But it is not.
Because Society tortures and torments you, moulds and shapes you to be the image of itself. It does not care if you are unhappy - it laughs at your clumsiness and stamps on your tears.
Have perfect make-up, Society says.
Have a perfect boyfriend, Society reminds you.
Swear! Society yells.
Be tanned. Wear short clothing.
Be skinny.

Ten years on.
I am broke from buying expensive make-up that I don’t wear.
I’ve never had a boyfriend.
It feels rebellious and wrong when I swear.
I am so pale that when I spray-tan I look like a pumpkin.
If I wore short and tight clothing it would reveal my scars from cutting.
And I am fat. So very fat.
But fat only in Society’s eyes.

I stare at my page.
Society ruined me, I write.
I turn the page in.

I find myself in the field of silvery wheat which once would dance up to my waist. But today, the wheat is dull and stiff while they are manoeuvred in the breeze. The sky is full of dark clouds which roll menacingly overhead. The air is thick and has a horrible smell.
It starts to rain.
I find a sharp object hidden in one of the bushes from years ago when I put it there.
The rain gets heavier.
It is raining my tears from past years.

After a while the rain stops.
The water droplets fall from the dying winter flowers like tears.

And as the last tear falls from the last flower, so will my last drop of blood roll down my chest.
At least now, I can once again dance with Winter.