29/50 - Inspirational cranes

This Chinese bottle, painted on the inside by an artist using a tiny brush, sits on my desk here at home. It's one of my most treasured small things.

Update: Oh, it's a story now! One-hundred more words:

Dawn comes, gray as a pigeon’s back. I dress, wrapping the warm skins, fur-side in, around my bony feet, lacing them secure with gut. I throw my boiled wool cloak, embroidered by my mother with bright silk thread from the old stores, over my shoulders and walk down to the river to wash the sleep from my eyes.

There are no cranes in the shallows.

Except for the river’s burble and clash as it runs down the wide steps of the mountainside, and the breeze whispering in my ears, there is no sound. Even the birds have stopped singing ...