world,white,death,life,good,bad,ugly,beautiful
There was a little girl of ten years walking home from school one day. Fresh snow powdered the earth as if God himself had sprinkled sweet icing sugar ever so perfectly around her world. She loved the snow, even when her cheeks burned at the icy nip of the winter air, begging to be brought inside to thaw. At this time of year she walked slower than normal, she loved the crunch of sound her footsteps made as they stamped themselves into the world, leaving behind small and crooked prints. She loved the way everything was light even when the sun didn’t show its glowing body, especially when the sun the didn’t show. Everything sparkled and she wished she could capture all the tiny starry specks of light that made the most boring white into the most beautiful landscape.
She’d never seen a dead body before. Never even thought about death, not like that. It was just laying there; a fist sized chunk of black feathers. She stopped in her tracks and stood above the small bird, her pale blue eyes studied everything about it down to the last detail on its scaly black twig like legs. It wasn’t beautiful at all. It didn’t sparkle or make the air bright, or have little tiny starry specks of light or anything nice like that at all. In fact it was the exact opposite, it was dark and ugly and made her feel angry and sad. Why does something like that even exist? It should be white like the snow then it could have died and people would look at it and say,
“What a shame, why did such an elegant creature have to be taken from this world so soon? God knows this world could use more beauty.”
Instead she’s sure people will only think, “Ew, a dead bird. Who’s cleaning up this mess?”
She offered before anyone would even see that black smudge in the snow. That ugliness. She crouched beside the crow and scooped up a ball of sparkly white in her two palms and dumped it over the stiff body. Again and again until there was no more darkness in her perfect world of white. She wiped the surface smooth and stood still staring at the ground where she had her first encounter with death. A grain of guilt pinched her stomach.
Could something ugly also be beautiful?