Silvercatcher

November 15

Posted by Madeline on Nov 15 2009

Listening to: Three Legged Fox

Reading: Villette by Charlotte Bronte

(Supposed to be reading: The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, as well as Murder in the Cathedral by T.S. Eliot…Oh boy)

I am in a room that is spinning. Perhaps you see me, standing like a broken doll, with a dangling arm and dejected neck and a shattered expression, vague in its inability to ever change. Change doesn’t come to dolls, who may only adjust their clothes and brush their hair, for to change would be to halt the twisting walls that never cease- impossible, irrefutable, meaningless. You would laugh at my attempt, a futile gesture that is brushed aside by the merest breeze, by the merest sign of condescension or mockery. My square home does not even have the decency to rise up in miniature walls with a confining roof to shade my eyes from the whirling business outside. No, I do not have the privilege, the honor, the not so special distinction of a shield for my eyes. There is no pink bed with a flimsy balcony, nor do I have a quaint window seat with a pillow on which to rest my head. I have only a square with painted black lines across which I do not dare to extend my arms or legs or fingers or toes for fear of colliding with all that whirls and spins beyond me. A tentative stretch yields only a sensation like a mild burn; anything more produces the irate fire of detestation and ridicule. So instead I keep my knees curled tight to my chin, my arms hooked tightly around my ankles, as I feel the heat of the friction of flying objects and twisting walls around my head. From where you sit in a plastic-covered armchair, my hunched posture may look broken, and some days, when the wind is flying not so high, not so sharp, not so violent, I can smile secretly into my porcelain hand and know the truth.

But while the gale is full of force and livid power, my arms dangle from broken strings that feebly swing in the wind, and my glass eyes glaze over. There is no truth to seek today; my porcelain hands are shattered from a final attempt, and I am broken.

Yes, folks, this is the result of writing [or battling for hours] a paper on Hamlet. Copyrighted to Madeline Gambino 2009

And lastly, a writing thought from hours and hours of editing Book Two: “This is war, not life.”