In the Midst of Winter

Excerpt from the manuscript of THE NUT SHELL TALES Short Stories by Andrea Connolly

From the frame of a cosy room she looked out at the greens that were swallowed by the low winter sun. This place was once a sanctuary of childhood dreams. Opposite the shelves of hardbacks under the sea grass wall paper she dreamed of far exotic landscapes. A Chinese lantern, paint brushed silk and a peacock blue tea set. A collection of shellac fairy tales. All more frequently disturbed by the sound of a Hoover. It mingled blood echoes in her that sound. A pressure constricting her heart like the machine she needed two or three times a week at the doctor´s house to improve her breathing. It´s chronical they said. She looked it up in the massive red leather hardbacks. The encyclopaedia of her world. Chronos, the Lord of time and cycles, also called Aeon. She liked to dream about those words she found. Her china blue linen bound Sagas and Tales of Ancient Times was her second choice after The Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Anderssen. She loved the Greek gods and goddesses. Their names, their powers. She spoke the names softly at night under her duvet. Hephaistos, the God of fire and anvil, Artemis, Goddess of the hunt, Zeus, the chief God or the thunder God, more known today as Thor, the God with the hammer. Long before superheroes where mainstream she had them on her radar. The demigods as well with their human traits. She knew the names of their Roman and Germanic counterparts. The mythos of that ancient world stuck with her. In the midst of winter she once more looked out from another window, it´s frame broken in time, open and exposed to the winds. Yet, it perfectly captured the low golden sun held by bare twigs poured out over the meadows. She inhabited another quarter of an hour before Chronos would continue the cycle of dark and light. She aligned in time for that golden hour of evening when the world turns inward, exposes the senses to an awareness, timeless and innocent.

21^st of January 2016