It is quite interesting to observe just how much change can occur over the course of a month. Why, just a month ago, this tree bore a woven coat of leaves painted the most striking shades of auburn rouges and butter yellows, while most of us still wore no coat at all. Eerily, now we shiver in rhythm to the trembling of naked branches, thin and frail without the protection we once took for granted. Where lush, green grass once grew, now is dominated by the bitter and barren. Crisp, fallen leaves echo with the sound of death when crunched by the weight of an unsuspecting foot. So too do I snap within as the layer of twigs blanketing the roads, feeling hollow and starved for sunlight I soaked up just weeks ago. Frigid wind whips at my hair, slicing my numbed face with its menacing claws. As I climb up the icy path that winds around the tall, epic mountain of time, I reach a fogged overlook peering over an earth of mangy grey clouds. Pushed by the cold, we are all falling into its dark, winterous clutch, and as our fingertips begin to freeze over, so too will a thick layer of frostbite paralyze our hearts, melting only at the call of springtime once more.

She was a lovely thing in her days of creation. Porcelain, cool to the touch, had been painted over and over again until her face bore a color applied so meticulously that the pleasant expression held a shockingly realistic vitality. Petite little toes slipped neatly into Mary-Jane shoes polished to a shining capable of showing a reflection when stared at hard enough. Longs legs hidden under tightly stitched stockings were built nearly too proportionally to belong to anything but a living, breathing creature. But the clothes were the true appeal of the Victorian-era figure that looked back at me. A fitted corset, the most astounding shade of midnight blue became a trailing, rounded skirt further down the torso. Sleeves of lace hemmed just in time as not to obscure any part of the dainty white gloves covering her slightly curved fingers. Embroidered roses the color of a cloudless sky lined the fabric, matching a band of flowers that stretched across soft curls. And oh, the hair. The color of hay, her locks streamed down her back like soft waves in an ocean made of the purest gold. If one expected that the period clothing to smell as if it were truly made in the 18th century, you would be happily surprised to find a heavenly aroma of a peppermint-vanilla wafting about it like a sort of aura. Although my mother claimed to have crafted the thing for the sole purpose of her daughter’s enjoyment, only the murky green eyes shared any resemblance to my own harsh features. The labor of her life, my mother passed away quite soon after its completion. Oftentimes, I feel as if this doll is but a remaining shell of the girl my mother always wished for me to be.