The Girl & The Hound | Winter Soldier

ONE

HE WILL COVER YOU WITH HIS FEATHERS, AND UNDER HIS WINGS YOU WILL FIND REFUGE.

PSALM 91:4

She scribbled the words onto the pages of her journal, the scribing soothing her mind as the plane jolted with continuous turbulence. Her pen glided swiftly over the paper, splurging its ink onto the lines as the captain's voice boomed through the speakers with information she adjudicated to ignore at that moment. The seatbelt warning bleeped through the cabin.

Refuge- the word in itself is really rather illusive, isn't it? Where is the refuge from ones erosive mind? Where does one run- where does one hide if the thing they intend to hide from is themselves? Wrap them with your wings and let your feathers ruffle them to sleep but the monstrous thoughts will lurk like a cancerous omen, patiently still there to greet them when they awake. So, where is the refuge from the tragedy of self hatred?

Tapping her pen on the corner of the page in thought, she glanced out of the window at the tops of skyscrapers that reached out of the clouds. The thick smog of pollution and muck clung to the city of New York like a disease, the state of it all a hideous sight to her. But as she continued to study the city, a stewardess interrupted her mind by announcing she needed to compose herself for landing.

"Sorry- yes, I won't be a minute," she stammered as the stewardess tightened her expression, an indication she needed to pack her stuff right away as she towered over her shoulder. She grew tense, sensing the stewardess' lurking presence beside her and so added timidly, "I don't intend to be rude, but please- I uh, don't like people standing over my shoulder whilst I write," she fumbled with her words nervously, forcing a small smile to relieve the awkwardness.

"My apologies," the stewardess retorted sharply, sheepishly retracting before twisting on her heel to assist a family three rows behind. Her heels clicked against the aisle's flooring as she approached the family, striking wonder into the girl over how large a health hazard that was. But once confident she was a safe distance, she drew in a deep breath and brought her pen back onto the paper.

A declaration of a better day is a verbal distraction to divert your agony into a useless hope. Tragedies do pass, but human beings are not tragedies so how does one rid the disease in their mind? You can't rid the sea of the reefs and expect the ecosystem to not collapse, so how do you kill the mind without destroying its occupant? Or am I delving into dark matters that I cannot even begin to comprehend? And how much sense does one have to speak before they lose their minds too?

- Sawyer

"Well damn Sawyer-" her eyes shot wide as she slammed her journal shut, a voice from behind her breaking her trance, "that's deep."

Her heart battered against her chest as the man spoke, her breathing unsteady as the person continued to rest over her head-res whilst peering down onto her. She melted in humiliation.

"T-thanks," she squeaked, tucking a strand of hair behind her left ear quickly and nervously as she shuffled her journal away.

"Didn't mean to spy in on you, my curiosity got the best of me," the man added as her panic still rattled on before his eyes landed on the spare seat beside her, "mind if I sit there? Don't want to be annoying but man-"

She quickly shuffled her stuff from the spare chair beside her to the eating desk, "of course," an additional small effort to quickly shift the attention from her and allow the man to sit. She felt ashamed and if her cheeks weren't as hot as a furnace in that moment, maybe furnaces weren't as hot as thought.