Venus and Cupid

Venus and Cupid
Vermeer girl with the pearl earring
virgin of the rocks
Woman with a Parasol
The next thing to enter her consciousness were sounds. The splash her elbowhad made, the rustle of leaves, an occasional bird chirp. Forest sounds. With agrunt, she took a short breath and noted the grunting sound. Smells began to fill her nostrils next: humid mossy smells, leafy oxygen smells,the odor of a distant honey, the vapor of rare flowers. Taste came with smell—the taste of blood on her tongue. She opened andclosed her mouth a few times, to localize where the blood was coming from; but shecouldn't. Instead, the attempt only brought the recognition of new pains—in herhead, in her neck, in her back. She started to move her arms again, but this entaileda whole catalogue of new pains; so once again, she rested. Next she allowed temperature to waft into her sensorium. Sun warmed thefingers of her right hand, while the palm, in shadow, stayed cool. A breeze draftedthe back of her legs. Her left hand, pressed against the skin of her belly, was warm. She felt…awake.