Crumpled wings...

She sat alone on the floor of her attic, oblivious to the swirls of dust and layers of cobwebs that seemed to engulf all, around her.
The single candle, guttering by her side, gave this dark hole a surreal view.

She sat in the shadow, a creature of this nether world..

bent..haggard..a lost shadow..tired and hopeless, she sat, looking at the timeworn chest with the rusty heavy padlock on it.that lay on the ground next to her

She sat motionless for a long time, wondering, what use it would be to unlock this chest after so long, what use to look at her treasure trove..her rusty collection of the past.

Something within her had died forever and that day she had locked this trunk and left it to rust here never to be opened again..

Then why had she come back to this room?
Why was she sitting here, amidst scratching rats and raining spiders, looking at her damn past?

She didn't know..

may be the only way she could make it stop haunting her was to set it free
the only way to get away was to accept it with open arms

so, slowly, she took the old unused key from around her neck, where it was held always, with a pink satin ribbon, lying next to where her heart had once beaten..

and she put the key in the heavy lock and turned it

the lock screamed, resisting this alien being..then finally let go and turned to reveal, what she had so dreaded to see

lying inside, was her heart, shriveled and dead..small..shrunken..bereft of the love that had once made it tick

below it were the flowers of her desires..wilted and dried as the heart that had bore them

just by their side lay her dusty dreams, the ones she had woven with her nibble fingers...soft as the softest silk..with colours so vibrant..they had seemed to flow

all that was left of them were rough beaten rags sucked of colour..a still stagnant white

her fingers moved over lovingly caressing them and putting them aside gently to look at the cracked glass of her once magical mirror

she looked for the beautiful face whose smile had once lighted its confines..the twinkling eyes that had added to its shine..but all she found were sunken eyes staring back with tears gone dry and a face so sallow and grey that it seemed little more than the shadow of a corpse

then a soft flutter distracted her..she looked around the room for the source of this commotion..but realized it was coming from the trunk..she wondered what was in that tomb to cause such a sound..she dug her hands in and felt a hesitant movement at the bottom

she removed all that lay above it and stared at it with widened eyes
there at the bottom of that lifeless ensemble lay a pair of broken wings..struggling feebly against the bands that held them down...
yes..the wings that had once been her pride..her companion..her guide..they had taken her beyond the limits of this world..her imagination..her power..that had let her fly..free and unshackled through the sky..before..
before she had fallen..crashed to this unforgiving earth..bound and shattered these wings had been..and she had tossed them along with everything else into her doomed chest..and here they lay before her eyes..

crumpled and discoloured..crippled and broken..mangled beyond recognition..yet..yet alive ..


ans as she saw them straining against their binds..something within her ignited again..
a light..a feeble one..weak yet..but a light nonetheless capable of turning into a torch again

for the first time in ages she felt a soft beat, where her heart had once been..a tiny tremor..a light whistle..of hope..of life
she felt her hands reach out and touch the soft wings..soothing them giving them assurance that they would be whole again

she lifted them out and put them back where they belonged..on her..
and tentatively lifted them..
they ached..they bled..yet they held on..she felt her feet lift again..
she felt the free wizz of air..
she wasn't flying yet..
but in her newly reinstated heart she knew that soon she would..

her tender wings would be powerful again and she would fly off once more, beyond the reach of these shackles, lifting her face up to the free wind and letting it carry her off to the land of silky flowing colours..