27: In honor of winter.

A hiss of light as the match head leaves grainy paper, pause, let the flame bob down and then find its foothold on the narrow sliver of wood in her hands. A tiny point of light in a small room, reaching up towards the stars through the window, as if yearning to become one with it's long lost brothers and sisters. 

Before the match is snuffed by it's own sprint down the dwindling supply of minuscule plank to walk, the girl lets it jump off onto the barely protruding wick of a mostly melted candle. It takes a second to understand it's new position, and when it is satisfied with it's station, flames higher to bring the gift of light to it's new master.

The girl, sleep still falling from her hair into her eyes, lets the candle dance a happy little jig for a moment, two, before sitting up fully in her bed and grasping groggily, but firmly, the small dish on which the candle sits and rising to her feet. 

The candle now lights more of the room, an upper part of the house that kept the heat from last nights fire still wafting about the rafters. Just out of reach, unfortunately, and the girl now shivers her way to the roughly carved dresser in the corner. The candle bumps into the dressers pitted and chipped edge a few times before coming to rest on it's uneven surface. 

The girl begins to swap nightgown for her daily garb, the fire on the tip of the candle ebbing and flaring as it is buffeted by the small breezes made by the moving fabric, and its rippling light makes the faceless drawing of a stag on the far wall quiver as if alive and ready to bound through the window into the cold morning darkness.

Shoes are on now. Leather straps that badly need replacing. And the heel on the left is shorter than the right, but maybe a few strips of thin birch wood will bring it back to level, she will have to ask Pa about that later. 

The candle is back in hand, and is being dipped towards the opening of the lantern. Quick as the snap of a twig, the flame leaps from wick to oiled wick, growing older and wiser and stronger in a second. The girl slips thin leather gloves over her calloused hands and grips the iron handle of the lantern with a practiced ease, exits the room, and begins to deliberately descend the steps.

The living room is small and smoke from the old fire is cold in the air. The girl steps around rough-hewn chairs of alder and low benches of birch as she approaches the door to the house. Hand cools immediately upon touching the cast iron lever holding winter outside the house. She pauses, makes sure there are no gaps in her bulwark against the dark winds of a winter morning, and then firmly pushes the door open.

The cold is a shock at first, but quickly becomes numbing to the point where she can no longer feel it. She thanks God for the leather gloves that keep her hand from becoming one with the iron handle of the lantern. The cows need feeding and milking, the chickens need the eggs collected, the milk then needs meed the eggs for breakfast for the family, and all of this before the sky sees the sun....

Now how sweet is it that we don't have to do this every morning like they did back in the 18th century? So much nicer. Anyways, hope you have a far better day than that girl is probably going to have.