The Shell

Rain is what I remember first. Waking up to pitter-patter, to soft kisses on my eyelids, to rivulets of crystal water snaking down the glass. The hushing whisper of the wind outside, the way that only the water ever seems to find it's way in, no matter how hard the wind blows, it can't seem to find the cracks the way that the water can. Water flows through everything in the spring. It washes away the grime and the old, seeping down, down, down under the dirt, making a home for new things. It's a new life.

I remember the glass shell that I have called home for the past eight years. I remember the days spent reading books, poring over page after page with the thick sound of bumbebee wings heavy in the air, as the sun glowed on the yellowing paper. I remember the nights, the longest nights, when the wind would scream at me. Other nights, the rain would seep into the shell, covering the floor, soaking my white gown. And then there were the star nights. The nights when the sky was open and I looked up through the glass into the wonderland.

I don't remember the winters. My life is measured in springs and falls, the only seasons that are temperate enough for them to wake me up. Today it is a spring day, the flowers and waving grasses beyond the shell are calling out to me. Today is the last day that I will be in the shell. I am preparing, because soon the shell will be a memory, like that first shell-morning beneath the first shell-rain.