Released All the furniture is gone, and yet, the old woman’s gathered residue takes shape in the yellowed absence of aged frames, yawning forth in shafts of sunlight; even in their present state of stark, outlined blankness, the space seems to whisper ancestral names, otherwise gone unknown to a revolving string of renters who will laugh and cry and wash their dishes in her sink—the cracked one the Super promised to replace, procrastinating every week right up until she died. Soon, no one will know of her existence within the confines of these walls. Even her children’s children, having long ago lost touch, solely consumed (as youth tends to be), with forging their own bonds, rent space in other people’s hearts, work to shape their unique variations on the same themes of life and love that she once had, unbound by their grandmother’s perspectives, unaware of her hopes and dreams, talents and idiosyncrasies that, for better or worse, fashioned their ability to be. Yet, no matter how little attention they pay, her blood still flows through their veins, scattering further across the continents; her wind-blown essence dipping again and again into the gene pools of strangers. Tomorrow, the tired curl of her tiny, corner, wall-papered haunt will be unceremoniously stripped and bleached with a fresh coat of paint in the subtle hues of the lofty dreams the new family requested. They will never know nor think to ask about the crack in the sink, or how it got there (although, they too, will soon complain). Nor, will they wonder about the old woman who took her last breath alone beneath the pictures of even lesser known ancestors, who weren’t always dead, or old, but rather, simply, people who, back when their own lives were freshly unfolding, spent inordinate time and thought picking out the most dazzling wallpaper they could find. Just like her, and them, they wanted a backdrop to new beginnings, then watched the years roll on, amazed at how quickly the paper faded, ebbing into yet another layer on walls in which we laugh and live. |
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