Morning

I woke up at 4:58, startled from the same nightmare that has plagued my nights since childhood. It was always the same relentless torment. Gazing out the window at the gray sky, I sat up and ran my fingers through the knots in my hair. I had started waking up before my alarm about a month prior and hadn't the heart to break the new habit, despite the exhaustion that colored my mornings. After swinging my legs off the side of the bed, I finally felt the chill of the air my blanket had been warding off. Though I usually loved the cold, that winter had worn down my soul, chipping away piece by piece my resolve. I stepped gingerly onto the hardwood, trying to avoid the inevitable shock on my bare skin, and sauntered over to the wardrobe. In the shadows, I dressed slowly, lightly caressing the embroidery on the dress. It was a blue gown with gold embroidery, beautiful in theory, but I hated it with a passion. In the throes of winter nothing made me sadder than cool colors which only served to reinforce the bleak landscape. I dreamed of a green dress, to match the evergreen trees, or an orange dress, to match my hair. But no, blue was the color they had chosen - blue with tacky gold embroidery. I turned to straighten my skirt in the mirror and the blue gleamed against the gray, while my face was obscured by the darkness. I stepped into the hallway and made my way down the stone stairs. The kitchen was even darker than my room, but I refused to turn on the lights. I began to start a fire for the kettle, when my dress caught the sparks and became engulfed in flames. The orange dress I wanted, I thought. I couldn't feel the heat, but I knew I was dying. For some reason, I was fine with that. I let the fire take me, until I was nothing more than a pile of ash and fragments of bone. And that's when I would wake up, with a queer calmness sinking into me.