The Orchard of Larinthia

The Orchard of Larinthia.1

The winter days were gaining fast reign upon the lands in which I dwelled, always the same pitifully sombre days of a childhood since lost to a baby’s selfish impertinent wailings, to the sublime misgivings on a mother’s behalf, not forgetting father’s dutiful inventiveness. I held fast upon the thin cotton now burrowed fast into my hollowed shoulders and a part of the stomach which lay flat as the winkles now embedded into newly washed garments, worn by all those rich, narcotic fools.2

The day had come almost as a fitful gaze upon unexplored lands, only true in one’s dreams and hardly seen as real. A tree’s frosted branches would lifelessly waver to a silently, hushed breeze and stand still until the moon had ambushed the skies once more. The snow stung my eyes, piteously stabbing them, as an eagle would tearing at raw flesh with its scathed talons. 3

Trianthal Sunday had arrived at long last, as we orphans of the church would be allowed to meddle and act in the verge of excitement in the Orchard of Larinthia, hungrily feasting on small, pretty cornflowers and breaking them free from their tireless oath to the ground. There we would extort like drunken fools suddenly fascinated by scandalous act, through the maternal nurseries of fruit, laden on trees, nurtured from the god’s hand. 4

There he stood his wise, veined hands sacrificed to the coldness of wrought iron, there he concocted dark thoughts, in which young girls were the prisoners and left only to play for a few conceded moments, whilst the birds still sung and light still poured down from the heavens. I had harboured this impression of him, ever since accepting the succulent fruits that were born in the grove. A furrowed brow, the eyes that had grazed upon the most saddest of times, when death finally embraced its savoured flesh, blood and bone.5

No company I had on these frightfully long Sundays, but the unintentional beauty of the grove flung a fretful yearning, not to be absent from these rare occasions.6

Had it not appeared that winter had departed, a girl had chosen foolishly to be teased away from the security sought behind the gates, deciding that the lands beyond the comforts of attention, needed exploring, before the blackness of the skies erased any such intention. 7

The girl’s body had been found drugged and bruised, just a short distance from where all the girls stood cowering, magnetized to their mistresses.8

Every Sunday was now to be spent wielded to the confinements of a dormitory, no laughing, no play.9

The priest called for me to spend my evenings under the church steeple, it was at this time, he fostered the support I had long yearned for. When he died, he left me in possession of a ring, a ring I had always worn since birth, one that my mother had left me.           10