The Lady in Black 《黑寡妇/也门战事/圣诞祭歌》原创

很久以前写的短小说，看了叙利亚的战事，好像有所感。

The house was very still. In the little room over the porch, the lady in black sat alone. Near her, a child's white dress lay across a chair. On the floor at her feet lay a tiny pair of shoes. A doll hung over a chair and a toy soldier occupied the little stand by the end.

And everywhere was silence--the strange silence that comes only to a room where the clock has stopped ticking. The clock was hung on the wall where the paint had started to peel off as if it was a ritual ceremony to mourn the delicate and vulunerable life fading away from a world of turbulence and chaos, or rather, to celebrate a little and innocent being who had been summoned by God to enter the Heaven as an angle of peace.

Time seemed to cease purposely so as to be in line with the sudden silence of the little room and the salient sadness of a heart-broken mother. Mrs Smith, the Lady in black, was sinking herself into the chair like a wreck, hysterical and hopeless. With tears welling down the cheek, her countenance was immersed in agony and anger, which was the complicated kind that, I bet, even Michelangelo, the master of sculpture, could be incapable of carving it out vividly.

Mrs.

Smith was sitting here for almost half a day, yet the time was seemingly the one to blame. Probably because in the last second one could still be in the joy of expecting a family reunion, yet for the moment one could be all alone in this bleak world for good. The room was stuffed by lifeless air, strange silence and sullen sorrow. She was staring at the white dress like an sculpture for quite a long long time. Outside the little room was a big dinner table with two candles lit, shining and shimmering. The big turkey on the table had turned cool along with the festive and warm air before. If it were two or three hours ago, I bet it would be a nice dinner for I could tell Mrs. Smith prepared it quite well. But it was all ruined by the bombardment outdoors. The noises of the explosives were the free and frightening morning call for people in Yemen. So was the situation for the Smith. But not anymore. Her husband died in one army mission of Yemen last year, leaving her and her 5-year-old daughter alone. And now it was only her that left in this world of war for her daughter was killed in the afternoon when she was playing at the ground in front of the house. Mrs. Smith held tightly the white dress which should have been the gift for her daughter at Christmas dinner.

The moonlight slowly crawled into the little room penetrating the window, leaving a zebra-line of moonlight and shadow on the ground, peacefully and silently. Suddendly, Mrs. Smith burst out with a laugh, weird and wicked; she left the room of sorrow, disappearing in the fury and fire of the sleepless night.

The sky of Yemen was still and there was not a soul in the street, yet I heared the cry at Yemen's Christmas.

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