Word of the Day Challenge: Embouchure

Mikhail Germashev

One morning, when the sunlight had turned the white crunchy snow under Elga Devellis bare feet shades of pink and red, she decided to follow the river that ran behind her house to see where it would go.

The air made her eyes water and she could barely see, it pinched her nose closed, it wrapped it’s arms around her chest and squeezed.

It also turned her feet a sickly yellow color but that didn’t bother her at all.

The river behind her house went somewhere and Elga was determined to find out where that was.

After she had walked for miles or maybe she had only been walking for a few minutes she began to notice the sky turning redder, the snow turning more pink and her feet began to itch.

But she was determined to keep walking, so she did.

There were no birds in the sky, but could feel their feathers falling from the sky, they brushed her cheek,  they got caught in her hair,  they tickled her nose and still she walked on.

One step at a time.

There was a little breeze and it whistled around the trees and sometimes it made the branches snap but nothing, not falling branches, bird feathers or her aching feet and frozen lungs slowed her down.

Elga stayed on the path that ran along the river that flowed in back of her house.

She was near the end of the trail when she turned around and saw the red sky, the trees, the sickly colored snow and at last she began to feel warm.

Her feet stopped aching, her lungs took in air, her watering eyes dried

and when she was able to open them she saw

the boat at the rivers edge, the figure wrapped in black  standing at it’s stern

and her burning house behind her.