Francis...oh Francis...

Dwindling in the snowfall, Francis dealt with the storm. There were only two environments there. Either calm air, or a roaring storm, in either of which survival was difficult since Francis had more power to surrender than to fight. It was all in her tiny head…all those conflicting thoughts…which weighed upon her constantly. And she lived in this continuum. With a constant fear of loneliness. So surrendering was one form of befriending an enemy. Or at least, symbolically, it was an attempt to mix with the surrounding. That was when she had lost all the faculties of sensibilities and sensitivities. Because…it was her fear that had overtaken everything. Her mind, her soul. Fear devoured her. It engulfed her. She loved a man. She tried loving everyone else. She tried to give. She tried to take. She tried to snatch. She tried to snatch so hard, she fell down far behind. She feared losing again. But she did not get up. She sat there…listening to the rising storm…her faculties dispatched to some far off land. She sat until the point she started freezing. She sat awhile more. She sat…staring into space. Where was the cradle she could reach and be rejuvenated? That was her question. A woman with so many legacies of her own mistakes wanted ablutions of purity. But if purity was somewhere, it was on the other side of a grand gorge. If she set one foot forward, she would fall in a dismal darkness. It was so hard to conceive that purity had such a hard price. Francis did start with a pure heart. She did start with promises of faith. She did start with innocence. If one may ask, what is so precious in the beginning of anything? It would be the innocence. Francis had that innocence. And once, in the course of time...that innocence was gone. It was because of a man. And Francis was never the same again. Fear, the inevitable devil, engulfed her. And it multiplied. Fear multiplied into deception, anger, hate, regret. Fear infused mistakes. Fear destroyed morality. Fear destroyed the genuineness. Fear got away with her soul. And fear reigned……..