JJeni Couzyn:
A Death In Winter Beside the exit, seated at a table is a grey clerk with a ledger. At his feet is a kind of box -- a trunk perhaps, a hope chest or a rubbish bin. Cross-legged in the doorway my friend sits, watching light stream in through the opening. It soaks her in beauty. She has given back her future. In character, neatly folded, she placed it carefully in the box and the clerk ticked it off. Now she takes off her feet, like shoes gently, one beside the other; she takes her speech and returns it syllable by syllable she unpicks it thoughtfully, like knitting unravels it, one plain, one purl meaning by meaning; she gives back her hands -- lays them down in the box with a smile. There is no regret in her. She knows their excellence. And now she gives back continence, choices, understanding the strange comings and goings about her. Everything she returns is fine and cared for. The clerk ticks it all off in his ledger. She is hardly human now she is almost entirely love she has given back her children and very little of the personal #is left in her heart. To the left of the doorway is a linen basket. A plump girl, laughing, kneels besides it. She is handing out gifts to the souls who come trooping in through the opening like sunlight. Hands to grip a finger feet to walk the first smile Mama, Papa, I want, I think all the trappings of the journey. My friend smiles across at the girl as if she were a daughter. The radiance streams in and over her soon she will take off the last of her body and step out into the stillness. th In Winter Beside the exit, seated at a table is a grey clerk with a ledger. At his feet is a kind of box -- a trunk perhaps, a hope chest or a rubbish bin. Cross-legged in the doorway my friend sits, watching light stream in through the opening. It soaks her in beauty. She has given back her future. In character, neatly folded, she placed it carefully in the box and the clerk ticked it off. Now she takes off her feet, like shoes gently, one beside the other; she takes her speech and returns it syllable by syllable she unpicks it thoughtfully, like knitting unravels it, one plain, one purl meaning by meaning; she gives back her hands -- lays them down in the box with a smile. There is no regret in her. She knows their excellence. And now she gives back continence, choices, understanding the strange comings and goings about her. Everything she returns is fine and cared for. The clerk ticks it all off in his ledger. She is hardly human now she is almost entirely love she has given back her children and very little of the personal #is left in her heart. To the left of the doorway is a linen basket. A plump girl, laughing, kneels besides it. She is handing out gifts to the souls who come trooping in through the opening like sunlight. Hands to grip a finger feet to walk the first smile Mama, Papa, I want, I think all the trappings of the journey. My friend smiles across at the girl as if she were a daughter. The radiance streams in and over her soon she will take off the last of her body and step out into the stillness.
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