x An Isldar picked up a hoop to begin on her new embroidery. Another flower out of the thousands her hands has already made - if she wanted to, there could be a museum out of it. Needle in, needle out. Her eyes hyperfocused on the beige ceiling, and soon she would begin to notice intricate details that initially weren't there. There were small cracks and missing pieces, as expected of an aging home. Was that stain always there? That section - it yellowed out so much -- Maybe I should hire someone to give it a fresh coat of paint, she thought. Her mind blanked out for every seam that she stitched. A rite that every bored weaver has gone through. . . . . . She remembered the ravens who weren’t ravens, but perfect, geometric imitations of them - like basalt sculptures that knew life. She remembered holding onto a skeletal hand who she once believed had belonged to a god's. Flashes of dead peasantry lay piled around her feet. Warm blood that ran down her lips. A wooden clank sounded when she dropped her scissors, and a sudden, acidic feeling flared within the woman’s throat. Clogged phlegm forced a retch out of her, and her frozen hands clawed at the edge of the kitchen sink when she threw her head into it. Torrents of black feathers spilled out of her mouth, and so did her tears. Breathe, she'd compel to herself. The worst of it was over, she'd lie to herself. She knew that she was likely to kill again in more ways than one. Kill friendships, kill hearts, and kill life that sought to end hers. She knew that she could never truly escape what has been done. She will always be reminded. The woman leaned weakly over the sink to look at the result, wondering if she had a right to be as happy as she was, when there were people out there who lost because of her, who wouldn't have a mother or a father coming home because of her. The sickening, black plumages that pooled the belly of the sink wasn't there, but instead plain bile in its place stared back at her. Even through the oppressive stench of wet poultry, the seamstress reasoned that she was just seeing things again. She innocently disregarded the episode and slipped on her Sunday shoes, tightening the lace of her corset as she got herself ready for another day of servitude. “It wasn’t your fault.” Reassured a barotone voice. It wasn’t hers, but it was comforting and like mantra, she clung to it. For the first time, she opened the dusty curtains to invite the searing sunlight inside. It’s time to empty out the skeleton in her closet.
