Cerulean Dust
by: Robert Zimmerman

I'll be writing this story for awhile, so check back for updates...

She sat by the window, her clean chestnut hair outlined in the shimmering moonlight. It was snowing lightly outside the cottage and a flake would occasionally flit past and further subdue the light for an instant. The girl's eyes fostered a distant gaze as they drifted from flake to flake. She shifted and crossed her arms and leaned them on the desk in front of her. The girl let her posture decline and sighed as she looked out the window once more, head on her shoulder as she cradles her arms for warmth.

The gray clouds had hid the stars this night and only the moon remained clearly visible in the midnight sky. The pale lighting was just enough to give the scene a surreal elegance, she thought. The pines were splotches of deep green ink on the landscape; they knelt on their faintly glowing backbone of snow. All else was obscured by shadows; the girl could not even distinguish the nearest cottage in the darkness. She shivered then stood up and walked toward the fireplace.

The girl placed a few logs in the fireplace along with a fistful of kindling. She reached and groped for the box of matches on the mantle, but felt nothing resembling the box. Pulling her head from the ash-laden pit, she brought her head to the height of the mantle. A framed picture came into view and immediately the girl regretting looking up.

She was confronted with the memory of her elder sister once again. Lauren... She thought. Lauren. The girl glanced over the picture with glazed eyes and began to weep, clutching the frame to her chest. Her fit was over soon, but it left her with an eerie resonance of mourning. She slumped to her knees and soon felt the cold of the hearthstone. Dropping the frame, she covered her head with her hands and sobbed loudly.

The serenity of the night was broken. Melissa blamed it on her sister as her elbows became moist, then wet. She was annoyed with her sister: she had spoiled her mood. It was all Lauren's fault she was stuck in the cabin, all her fault that her parents were gone... Melissa's crying gradually ceased as she realized the good her sister had done. Her face flushed and two salty, crusted lines appeared in place of her tears. She began to rub the lines away and, forgetting the fire, she curled into a ball and wiped and rocked and thought. Sleep overcame her quickly in the empty, moonlit cottage.