She shrieked. Her mother ran in from the other room, wondering if she hurt herself. She was standing there, trembling, her face contorted with fear as she gazed at the middle-aged woman in front of her. Look she screeched at her mom, who is that fat woman? It is you, answered her mother, tears running down her face.
She looked at herself in the mirror. Time had passed faster than she imagined. Ten years! She could not believe that this had happened. The words of her mother explaining everything drowned into the distance and she only picked up bits and pieces so akin to the bits and pieces of herself that she was now picking up, recollecting her past as she examined that unknown paunchy dull woman. …Catatonia… you were… depressed… never reacting… I took care of you despite …fed you… combed your hair… bathed you…
The grandfather clock seemed to pound the seconds synchronised with the beating of her heart as she reached out to the image of herself and the vision of her hand with its strange reflection, chubby with the nails crooked and bitten off was another shock. Ticks and tocks, how many more shocks, her mind whispered. She still could not believe so much time had passed without her even living those moments truly. Of essential time she had not felt the chime, she told herself. It was as if someone had stolen those years, hidden them away from her. Oh but to find the key to the treasure chest and wind back those memories to contemplate!
She looked back to her image, the weary tired eyes with the crow lines extending towards the cheeks. Those cheeks once so rosy and spruced how they were all faded now sad and grey. That sagging tired jawline could sink the spirits lower than wine she thought to herself as her finger traced them slowly towards her temples. Her head was aching now and she pressed her temples hard wincing under the pain but glad to be feeling again something at least. All those years gone by that she would never be able to witness like grains of sand they had seeped through her fingers and would never come back. What had happened to him she wondered. Tempus fugit… a cackling voice repeated over and over in her mind as she sunk to her knees.
Courtesy forum.theluminarium.net
Written in the context of FRIDAY FICTION with RONOVAN WRITES Prompt Challenge #9
All images courtesy deviantart.com except the last courtesy pinterest.com. The beautiful ladies in mist are courtesy Federico Bebber published on deviantart.com
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