Looking out on cornfields

Prompt:

"The corn was head high, rustling its heavy, dusty leaves, and for a while anyway it had nothing to do with her."

Lila, by Marilynne Robinson

She hides in the attic amongst discarded pieces of broken furniture. Too precious to burn. No longer deemed worthy of fixing. Instead, they gather dust on their wooden surfaces, the grim and rust in their joints leave stains on her shirt and shorts as she crawls to the round window open at the gable of the roof. A cool breeze dries the pearls of sweat on her forehead. 

Sinking into cushions, she forms a makeshift fort, grasping the softest one, its floral pattern faded by sunlight, and hugging it close to her chest. Pushing down, trying to stave off the waves of disappointment and hurt building up inside of her. Her mother's categorical no still echoes in her ears. Her one chance of escape shattered.

  
Now there is nothing to do but wait and watch each day pass by in repetition of nothingness. She swallows the bitterness, choking. Tears begin to fall. 

History

I used to go to Würzburg to the Benedictine monastery to learn Tai Chi.

A Chinese Catholic priest from Barcelona came to teach. He told us the story of escaping China with Catholic missionaries when their lives were threatened by the Red Army.

Thirty years later, he returned to visit his sister, his only living relative. He said that, instead of recounting the details of their struggles, they sat together in silence, knowing that their suffering was too deep to put into words.