Regina Saxony
on the topic of screams
The bakery smells delicious in the mornings when her stomach is empty.
Many of the peasants who migrated to the city work in the large, chilly steel room behind the storefront, tirelessly kneading dough and alternating pans in the ovens. With hair pinned up and secured with the same red cloths and wearing the same white aprons, they all are uniform and equal to Regina, whether tsarina or peasant, it made no difference.
Many of the women whistled to pass the work, the interesting ones whispered, “Regina, you have a boy in the service right?” A woman named Marina hushes.
“Yes, Ilya Volkov, he’s in the navy,” Regina quirks an eyebrow, staring at the woman’s bitten lip as they both knead bread on the cool steel of the industrial work table.
Marina shakes her curly blonde hair, she’d look angelic if she wasn’t so boney, if she wasn’t so emaciated. “They say that Svetlana’s boy came home two weeks ago after he was shot in the clavicle…” Regina turned to peer down the table. Her workplace was at the far left end of the table.
She’d watch the artfully kinetic hands knead into the dough (or lack thereof when the shortages came) from her perch, strangely entranced by the constant motion. If there wasn’t flour, there was always something to be canned or boxed, always something to be cleaned. Strangely enough, in the famine stricken nightmare of Petrograd, being a baker wasn’t a bad trade.
Svetlana was a chubby woman. Short in stature, she carried shadows that were strikingly visible under her abyssal irises. Hair jutted from her braids in a frizzy, untamable mannerism, she looked something horrible, the distressed (or depressed) sort of horrible. “They say that these men come home and don’t register that they’re home. Like they’re still in those trenches. They call it shell shock.”
Regina bites her tongue, reducing her speed as she rudely stares at the hard working woman.
“What’s it like?”
“Oh, this is just what I hear sweet Regina, I don’t know for sure…”
Curtly, with her sharp nose, she seriously queries, “What’s it like?”
“They scream, they stare without a meaning in the world, they’re numb, they can’t sleep, eat, speak, or anything. It’s a terrible sadness,” Marina whispers in a girlish dismay tinged with some sick, primal excitement.
Regina spends the rest of her shift whistling.
Many of the peasants who migrated to the city work in the large, chilly steel room behind the storefront, tirelessly kneading dough and alternating pans in the ovens. With hair pinned up and secured with the same red cloths and wearing the same white aprons, they all are uniform and equal to Regina, whether tsarina or peasant, it made no difference.
Many of the women whistled to pass the work, the interesting ones whispered, “Regina, you have a boy in the service right?” A woman named Marina hushes.
“Yes, Ilya Volkov, he’s in the navy,” Regina quirks an eyebrow, staring at the woman’s bitten lip as they both knead bread on the cool steel of the industrial work table.
Marina shakes her curly blonde hair, she’d look angelic if she wasn’t so boney, if she wasn’t so emaciated. “They say that Svetlana’s boy came home two weeks ago after he was shot in the clavicle…” Regina turned to peer down the table. Her workplace was at the far left end of the table.
She’d watch the artfully kinetic hands knead into the dough (or lack thereof when the shortages came) from her perch, strangely entranced by the constant motion. If there wasn’t flour, there was always something to be canned or boxed, always something to be cleaned. Strangely enough, in the famine stricken nightmare of Petrograd, being a baker wasn’t a bad trade.
Svetlana was a chubby woman. Short in stature, she carried shadows that were strikingly visible under her abyssal irises. Hair jutted from her braids in a frizzy, untamable mannerism, she looked something horrible, the distressed (or depressed) sort of horrible. “They say that these men come home and don’t register that they’re home. Like they’re still in those trenches. They call it shell shock.”
Regina bites her tongue, reducing her speed as she rudely stares at the hard working woman.
“What’s it like?”
“Oh, this is just what I hear sweet Regina, I don’t know for sure…”
Curtly, with her sharp nose, she seriously queries, “What’s it like?”
“They scream, they stare without a meaning in the world, they’re numb, they can’t sleep, eat, speak, or anything. It’s a terrible sadness,” Marina whispers in a girlish dismay tinged with some sick, primal excitement.
Regina spends the rest of her shift whistling.
♠ ♠ ♠
*hint hint*