July 8, 2013

• Through the Picture Window Part One of Three

   A blend of truth and fiction in three parts

   

   

  One

   

  Her eyes caught on the marigold. Really, it was a fraction of a flower; between truck tires and heavy feet, there wasn’t much front yard left. Now, looking out where the small patches of orange and yellow used to line the flagstones, this one tiny piece of a flower slumped.

   

  This is the house that Pop and Mom built, she thought.

   

              It was nothing.

              They made it into something.

              Now, it is nothing again.

   

  She felt her forehead pressing against the glass. “I am a marigold,” she whispered.

   

  To stay, to re-make what once was… That was a dream. No money. No time. No strength.

   

  “But I have my memories,” she told the marigold on the other side of the window. It wasn’t a lie yet; her short-term memory was going, she knew, but she still had the old days. For now. She could see it in the panes of the picture window if she concentrated; there were times she’d spent a whole day doing just that, watching those she loved – not dead, not to her, they never would be – doing what they had once done.

   

  “One more time,” she said to the picture window. Took a step back. Watched.

   

  In a few minutes, her daughter would take her away to the new place. She prayed.

   

              I will go, Lord…

              But once more, let me wander

             Through the Picture Window.

   

  • 10:38 pm
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