So It Is

A small garden comes to life in the shadow of a concrete home. The sun pushes through spring’s adolescence, warming a lone corner laced with weeds. A chair suffering from rusted joints has been placed in the light, occupied by a woman in a bathrobe. Her naked feet scrape the points of the sun soaked grass, paper white pendulums wrinkled by time. She smokes a cigarette absently, an automation a lifetime in the making. 

Beyond her borders, a group of children shout directions at one another for a nameless game. A chuckle comes from her that no one hears, a faint memory coming and going, leaving her to herself.

A quick flick discards the ashen pillar growing between her fingers, the grey peaks on the garden’s soil dissolving in the wind.

She contemplates another cigarette, but the sun has moved on, and already her feet are left to the cold. The day might give her another chance later along the woodland path, but only if her leg will allow it. Removing herself from the chair is work enough, the stride that covered continents and forested hills now reduced to a shuffle.

A warm draft greets her as she pries the sliding door to the side, the air gilded by ancient smoke and over-scented cleaning products. The threshold to the outside is quilted in white drapes, yellowed by nights where the drink could find no companionship with an e-cig. Her joints crack in protest against the tiled floors, a background noise unheeded along the way to the kettle.

From the cupboard she retrieves her favourite mug, a leading dish at the forefront of a ceramic army, each rank fated to gather dust. And yet, every so often she’ll put them in the dishwasher to rid them of their neglect.

The Nescafé gold blend sits in the pantry, surrounded by teas and mixes that go beyond her liking, half empty and untouched. Three heaping spoonfuls are shovelled into the cup, alongside two of sugar, and the milk already out from the morning’s first cup. She bleeds the kettle as it sings, unleashing the aromatic phantom of homeliness, dancing to the tinkle of a spoon’s swirl.

Again she contemplates a cigarette, thwarted by the forgotten lighter resting at the end of the garden. She unsheathes the e-cig from her breast pocket and makes do. 

The sun has pronounced itself through the window of the sitting room, her next destination. Coffee in hand, she trudges through a hallway littered with wooden frames and forever smiles, her eyes fixed to the floor. The sound of wet ripping overtakes her steps, and from her lungs she produces lazy clouds. She passes beneath the wall’s many eyes under the cover of smoke, a silent locomotive on a fixed track.

Her couch is a dusty sanctuary, one that cannot accept her without a laborious groan. A quick scan for the ever illusive remote before realising she’s pressed it into the nethers of couch’s undercroft. With some effort she bypasses the satin slit, her hand a plunderer in a temple of memories, fingers brushing ancient crumbs fallen from mouths now grown. The plastic idol offers no resistance as she tears it from the dark. An intrusive thought stuns her as she points it toward the black window hanging on her wall, and suddenly she finds herself unsure of letting the world bleed into her living room. 

A vibration steals her thoughts. The phone on the table, her phone, a black monolith of random dictation, the setter of moods and revealer of fears. It moves with every rumble, inching towards her, a death bell seeking the individual it tolls for. Her heart begins to race, terrified of what she would see once she pries the screen from the wooden surface. One might be swayed to simply deny it under such duress, but she can’t pass up a dance with sorrow.

It is only an alarm for her medication.

Still, maybe a message had come through in the short time she’d been away. Her phone had a way of hiding messages behind other notifications.

But no. It remains empty.

Perhaps she’d send another beacon. Perhaps this one might be different. She could confront her fears and put light to the shadows of guilt stretching well into earlier years. She could acknowledge pain and untangle its thorned barbs. She could speak her mind.

But no. She remains empty.

Perhaps she’d send one after a few cans. Break down those walls and build up courage. This time she’d climb just high enough in the drink where the pain could not reach her and the scalding rage of wasted years would not burn too hot. Perhaps then she could put the words right.

And if she failed, if sweet words and honest intentions become caustic and tore at the foundations of love, well there was always tomorrow.

Chances were endless in a tribe, were they not?

She wonders this, and the empty room she dwells within incapable of providing an answer.