theatrical_muse #200: Picture
"I dreamt I saw you walking up a hillside in the snow
Casting shadows on the winter sky as you stood there
Counting crows
One for sorrow
Two for joy
Three for girls and four for boys
Five for silver
Six for gold and
Seven for the secret never to be told..."
She is barely five when her grandmother teaches her how to count the crows. It’s a myth, a very old practice of telling fortune. And for the Lauren, the murders are always too big to count only to seven. She counts quickly, turning and turning in the place where she stands trying to find and point to them all, not wanting to leave even one uncounted. At five years old, somehow, she knows, the future’s only as certain as your ability to count the seemingly infinite.
Still, It’s over fifteen years later, and her grandmother is long gone and she finds the habit still inside her. When she’s restless, she sits out on the balcony, watching for their small black forms. The weather has turned suddenly cold, almost without warning. The leaves have abandoned the trees, a constant stream of swan dives, glowing gold and orange and red. When the sky turns grey, Lauren looks out her bedroom window to see their countless numbers in the bare trees, an all black silhouette against the milky sky that seems to never stop connecting. The crows seem fixed to the trees as though they’d always been part of them. As if they’d just always been content to hide behind the leaves.
Most days, she counts to seven and has to start all over again. She wonders what the secret is. And why it must never be told. She has plenty of her own she keeps buried just beneath her skin, and some she’s pushed down farther. Secrets she never plans to tell. But she wonders how it fits the rhyme. Or what sort of future it would tell. That someone would keep something hidden from you forever?
Today, there is only one. Even when she walks out onto the balcony, expanding her view horizontally. She closes her eyes, and remembers to breathe. Tries to remember that it’s just a rhyme. The last time she saw a single crow, was the last time she ever saw Winter Falls. The rhyme may say one, but there were three she buried there. Three for sorrow. One for fear.
Lauren Santini
Original Character
351 Words
Casting shadows on the winter sky as you stood there
Counting crows
One for sorrow
Two for joy
Three for girls and four for boys
Five for silver
Six for gold and
Seven for the secret never to be told..."
She is barely five when her grandmother teaches her how to count the crows. It’s a myth, a very old practice of telling fortune. And for the Lauren, the murders are always too big to count only to seven. She counts quickly, turning and turning in the place where she stands trying to find and point to them all, not wanting to leave even one uncounted. At five years old, somehow, she knows, the future’s only as certain as your ability to count the seemingly infinite.
Still, It’s over fifteen years later, and her grandmother is long gone and she finds the habit still inside her. When she’s restless, she sits out on the balcony, watching for their small black forms. The weather has turned suddenly cold, almost without warning. The leaves have abandoned the trees, a constant stream of swan dives, glowing gold and orange and red. When the sky turns grey, Lauren looks out her bedroom window to see their countless numbers in the bare trees, an all black silhouette against the milky sky that seems to never stop connecting. The crows seem fixed to the trees as though they’d always been part of them. As if they’d just always been content to hide behind the leaves.
Most days, she counts to seven and has to start all over again. She wonders what the secret is. And why it must never be told. She has plenty of her own she keeps buried just beneath her skin, and some she’s pushed down farther. Secrets she never plans to tell. But she wonders how it fits the rhyme. Or what sort of future it would tell. That someone would keep something hidden from you forever?
Today, there is only one. Even when she walks out onto the balcony, expanding her view horizontally. She closes her eyes, and remembers to breathe. Tries to remember that it’s just a rhyme. The last time she saw a single crow, was the last time she ever saw Winter Falls. The rhyme may say one, but there were three she buried there. Three for sorrow. One for fear.
Lauren Santini
Original Character
351 Words