Woman in Blue

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Looking at her sitting at the edge of her seat, the rosy tones of her skin illuminated by the blue flow of her dress and the white-rose fabric of her headscarf, one could easily misunderstand the existence of Mrs. Kyriaki. She smiled little, and spoke less, keeping her musings restrained behind the glow of haunted, haunting blue-gray eyes. She swallowed her bitterness and her past with every sip of her dark morning coffee, feeling the hot scalding liquid burn a reminder down her throat, a trail of inward scalding tears.

Mrs. Kyriaki never laughed—at least, never in the company of others. She kept her face smooth and mask-like, a technique that had ensured her survival during the two wars she had lived through. Her face flushed with the heat of her coffee and her mouth was transfixed—as if carved—in a very tiny polite smile, just apparent enough so as not to appear rude in a crowd. She did not instigate conversations with her fellow villagers in the coffeehouse, but she seemed to find comfort in their company because she came to nestle amongst them daily.

But she didn’t have to speak. Those who had survived the war knew her story, and heard every note of pain and every hiss of sadness in her silence. They had passed on the story to their children, who knew better than to bother the lonely woman whose hair never seemed to whiten and whose mask-like face never seemed to wrinkle.

“Angreek87″