The leaves of the old book were delicate in your hands. You handled them gently, and the ridiculous thought occurred to you that your should be wearing gloves. You've seen them in museums, the broad, calloused hands of the tour guide somehow softened by thin silk as he paged through a book so old that he wasn't sure when it was made.
But this book wasn't nearly as old. It was your grandmother's, one of the few things your mother kept, and one of the few things you took as your own. It reminds you of your mother, the way the fragile pages slide under the pads of your fingers, like thin flesh that could be torn apart. But that wouldn't stop you, because this was your ritual. A warming glass of wine, and the soft light of the lamp next to you, and the book that was once your mother's in your hands. When you read it you would mumble to yourself, as if you could remember your mother's voice weaving through the words on the page.
“I have wished a bird would fly away,
And not sing by my house all day;”
It's a memory, and like all memories of that world it appears suddenly in your mind, like a flash a light in the darkness. You barely remember it now, so you grasp to the single thread you can, anything to remind you of what you left behind. ( It's so important you get back, why can't you remember that? )--------
Cut for length and minor spoilers for the second series.
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Muse: Alex Drake, Ashes to Ashes
Prompt: #313 - Write about something old, something new, or something borrowed.
Verse: Open and Canon Verses
Word Count: 1180
Note: This also involves a prompt given to me by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pi_sparrow, who challenged me to write in the second person and include a line from a Robert Frost poem, fireworks, broken glass, and a baby. The poem used is "A Minor Bird" by Robert Frost.
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