joan caruso - d.10 / wip

"The winter peels off layers of comfort and hope that linger on me like dead skin. It burns my fingertips and makes my breath turn as foggy as the smoke that blows out of our chimney. Winter is a reminder of life and the pain that humans must endure, the sobs of a lost child or the cries of a mother who just lost a son. The winter reminds us of all of it, every single bad thing that must happen to ensure good moments in the future. At the end of winter, those layers of prosperity and trust are built back up. But you know that at soon as winter comes again, you will deteriorate into nothing once more."

I put down my pencil and sigh, breathing in the frigid air and letting it burn my fragile lungs. I glance over the poem quickly and make sure that everything is perfect. Closing the tattered notebook, I slide it under my bed and lean back against the thin wall. I close my eyes and let my thoughts wander away from the bitter cold, but it'll always be there in the back of my mind.

Afterall, nothing has torn me apart as much as the winter has.



My mother's favorite season was winter. It's strange to think that a time of such suffering and despair could bring such immense joy to some people. I looked at her puzzled the first time she told me this, my mind spinning and trying to rationalize how she could possibly love something so cruel. Mother always was able to find the good in everything, even in the things that other's felt the most hatred towards. Winter was one of these things.

She would walk outside with me when I was a small girl, my gloved hand fitting snugly into hers. We would bundle up in whatever we could possibly find, layers of shirts on top of each other in an attempt to take one look outside. She would look down at me and smile, picking up a handful of snow and letting it melt on her thin gloves. I would always ask her why she would do that, why she would let it melt into her hands and make her cold, and every time she would just smile. She would give me a handful as well and I would flail my thin arms to get rid of it as soon as I felt the slightest piercing sensation.

We would play in the snow for hours and I didn't have much fun, but I wanted mother to be happy. She always would tell me how beautiful my dull green eyes were and how delicate my small hands were; mother always had something to say to make someone feel better. She would always stop at the market and tell people little compliments. I don't know how she did it, but people's faces would light up in a way I had never seen before. It was truly amazing.

"Do you know why I love the winter, Joan?" I would shake my head, my mousy brown hair swinging awkwardly around my face. No matter how many times I had seen her outside, I could never think of any reason for her to love such a baron and worthless season. "Winter is the one thing that many people fear. They see snow and they let the cold consume them, they let the ice freeze their empty hearts and steal who they are. They give into the force that wants to desperately take every last speck of hope. I refuse to give into that, Joan. I will not let it make me empty, I will not fear something natural and beautiful, and I will find a way to see the good in it. There is so much evil in the world, so much that we have no control over, so much that we are forced to fear. No one is telling us to fear winter, so why should I be scared of it?"

I would nod and pretend that I understood, that I knew exactly what she was saying even though it still didn't make any sense to me. The winter was still my enemy and I would never be able to accept it as a friend, the thought that my mother had scared me.

They say that you shouldn't trust something too much, and I think that's where my mother's greatest downfall was.

She was already quite an older woman and she had me and my brother, we were raised seeing the winkles on her face and the signs of white hair. She and my father wanted the best for us, and it was hard for them having to raise their children with almost nothing. No matter what though, they always found a way to bring a smile to our faces. I just wish I had done the same for them.

It happened when I was just 12, a quiet girl with jagged fingernails and messy hair. It was just beginning to go into January and the world was a dark place with little hope. The days got shorter and the nights seemed to last forever, pitch black surrounding everything. My father had run out to get more oil for our lamps and some firewood. We all tried to huddle together in the small house, our bodies pressed tightly against each other to retain some sort of heat.

Mother was with us, her feeble body fighting for warmth and her voice scratchy and raw. She had come down with a cold about a week earlier and she had been confined to her bed for the most part. We knew early on that this was no ordinary cold, and when her face started to skin in and her skin turned thin and paper like, we knew that there wasn't much else we could do.

We tried our best to give her the most blankets and to make sure that she stayed warm somehow. It was impossible, and the more we covered her up the more shivers ran through her body and the more she coughed. We couldn't see anything and the only noise was her teeth chattering along with the occasional raspy cough. I don't know if it was the darkness of that night, or just the overwhelming sense of fear inside of me, but I knew that something was going to happen that night.

She was getting colder and colder and nothing we did would stop the coughing or pained sobs coming form mother's throat. I remember that she somehow grabbed my hand and squeezed it with all the force she could muster.

"Joan," she murmured. "Learn to love what your scared of most, if you do that, nothing can hurt you."

I started to cry, and I held onto her hand. I heard her cough more, each one worse than the last. The house seemed to rattle with death and fear, and after a few small sobs and a whimpering cough from my mother, she went completely limp. I felt the heat drain from her vein-covered fingers, it felt like the entire world had just stopped.

In a few short moments, I felt my brother hugging me and holding me while I cried. He sat with me while we waited for father to return, it seemed to take forever. When he did come through the door, I felt the most pain I have ever felt bloom in my chest. My brother and I lit the candles while we watched our father, it was absolutely heartbreaking.

The look of pain on his face shattered everything left in my heart, every last speck of hope. He silently cried and held his dead wife in his arms, touching her face with such a gentle and loving touch, as though he couldn't see that she was no longer breathing. I saw my mothers corpse for the first time when I lit those candles, and I wish more than anything that I didn't. She looked like a ghost of herself and blood stained her lips and down her whole chest.

All I could think of were those last words she said to me, those words seemed filled with betrayal and spite. She learned to love what she feared and she learned to find compassion in everything, but in the end she wasn't allowed peace.

In the end she was torn apart and tortured, betrayed and lied to by the one thing that she carelessly trusted.

The thing that hurt the most, was that in her last final moments, she told me to make the same mistakes that she did. In the end she never learned, and in the end she was just as bad as those that she vowed to never be like. She left her fears take control of her and beat her to death.

I promised myself right there, I would never be like her.