Itch Two: Unwell
Cleo opened the curtains and cracked open a window. The sun was already out, it's light cutting brilliant through the morning clouds, and covering her skin, warming it.
She went about cleaning for the day. She finished quickly, like everyday, taking about nine minutes and thirty-eight seconds; a new record. It didn't surprise her. The only mess to clean was her own.
With her spare time, she writes in her journal. Daily entries usual, twice a day, sometimes three if you're counting, often times many times more. The entries are about many things; a funny thought, a witty observation (or at least she thought to be witty), musical pieces she composed, anything that she fancied really-- the small things, the big things, the nothings, perhaps everything.
She passed her time like this, and everyday, before she realized it, the sun would have already laid down his head behind the mountains, awakening his sleeping wife, the moon.
Some described the nights as cold. Cleo would describe it as freezing and brutal. She closed the windows, lite candles, even going so far as to wrap her naked body in her bed comforter, but nothing helped.
Sometimes she would walk to the bathroom, and the strain from lifting her body up and down the stairs made her delirious with pain. And many a night --every night, in actuality-- it hurt to simply breath; each forward and backward pitch of her lungs leaving her sick and weak. She wrote in her journal about this, and to quote her, "suffocating in a coffin of burning snow."
She wrote a total of two entries about this feeling, and then stopped on the third. But it wasn't because the feeling disappeared, oh no, but because it was always there; a constant, like the chores she had to do, the faucet that always dripped, and the nocturnal mice that scuttled about the house. Later on, she mused lightly in her journal and wondered if she simply became used to the feeling… numb to it, even.
Then one day, she awoke to hear strange noises in the kitchen. She tiptoed down the stairs, inched her way to the kitchen door, and peaked in. Three figures stood huddled together near the kitchen stove.
Cleo felt an odd sensation grow in the pit of her stomach. It was tiny at first, but in an instant, in a heartbeat, it swept her through her entire body like a flood, spreading from the tips of her toes to the ends of her hair. It was a warm feeling; a mish-mash of wonder, warmth, and relief.
And then, the figures turned around, she smiled, and their glowing and sorely-missed faces smiled back at her.
Pahn spoke of running out of money, Gremio spoke of missing his bed, and the Young Master spoke of nothing at all; merely intent on tugging at Gremio's ears as he tried to cook.
But amongst the talks of money and travel, the silence, the smiles, and the teasing, Cleo heard but one thing.
We're Home.
Fin
(Home are the people who carry our heart)