Further filings
The Effigy
★★★★★
Built from what the house could spare and still look decent: a skirt, a mouth that would not open in company, straw where a spine should argue. They said this is her. They said this is winter. They said this is over. I was the only object in the room that had to hold all three lies at once.
Two sticks in a cross. Straw. A head. In the better villages, white cloth, coral, ribbons in hair that is not hair. In Silesia the boys sometimes built her a husband out of an old suit and called him Marzaniok and drowned him too, so that no one would have to drown only the woman.
She was employed to be three things that cannot occupy one body: the girl, the winter, the ending. They pointed at the straw and said this is her. They pointed at the fire and said this is over. She burned according to spec. She floated worse. She is still the only object in the room that had to hold all three lies at once. The house kept the good skirt.
Additional filings will be posted here.