Evanescence

“Well,” I asked, “what was it like?”

The old woman took her time, her opaque white eyes staring into the distance. I looked at the woman’s eye sockets, hanging low and making her almost zombie-like.

“Hm!” I prompted.

“It’s like...” she spoke in slow motion, the words scrapping her throat, “well, I went outside one morning, and I saw them, laughing and pounding at the windows. I told them, I told them, to go away, but they didn’t. So, I opened the door...”

“And?”

“And they turned into birds, every one of them. They were crows, except they were still laughing, ugly human laughs. And when I looked up, the sky, it was... purple. The kind of evil purple a tyrant king wears or the one before a tornado.”

I cleared my throat. “Oh... that sounds, um, it must’ve been awful. But it wasn’t real, you know, you were only dreaming.”

The woman slowly drummed her skeletal fingers on the table. “No,” she said, drawing the word out, “I’m quite sure it was real...”

At her words, the old woman suddenly disappeared, like she’d evaporated. I froze for a moment, but I was somehow unsurprised.

“Oh.” I said, my voice a rasp.

I looked down. Gone were the manicured hands of youth, replaced by the twisted and speckled skin of the old woman. I’m her, I thought, and then, of course you are, Ruth. You only made the girl up for some company. Dementia, the doctor said. Remember?

But I’d been her! I had been the girl! I shook my head, my white locks shaking. I pushed myself up from the table and walked towards the window, hobbling on my knobbed feet.

I just had to know... but it couldn’t be...

I pulled open the door and turned my face heaven-bound...

And the sky was purple.