Memory

I’ll tell you, there’s nothing harder than waiting for someone who’s already gone.

I watch as Margaret bustles about the small kitchen (the woman must have an award someplace for being the fastest housekeeper this side of the Pacific), and I try to focus all my attention on the document resting on the dining table. It’s always important documents here and there; something to take care of, or something to finish up. But it’s just a bit difficult to keep my mind on the things at hand.

I shuffle over to the sink, swiping the familiar chipped mug from the dish rack, and pour myself a steaming cup of Earl Grey. Somehow, I manage this without spilling the drink all over the counter - a feat, considering the arthritis steadily gnawing at my bones.

My favorite photograph is framed next to the blue bay window. To the trained eye, it’s actually quite a bad shot: strange contrasts, blurred, tilted subjects, and countless other oddities that one could attribute to the amateur hand. Two shadowy figures, hand in hand, wander down a lit street - it’s a sort of quintessential photo, one you’d find in an advertisement for cheap honeymoons or something of that sort.

For me, it’s a sharp reminder of something I never really understood.

For someone with two university degrees, that ignorance is still difficult for my ego to grasp. I admit I’ve always been an arrogant person.

A noise breaks me out of my reverie, and I peer through the window. In the dim light, I can barely make out the pair stumbling down the street, shaking with laughter. I’m left glaring at them, angry at two things. One, at the mechanic who neglected to repair the streetlight, and two, at the couple happily strolling down the sidewalk. I wonder why I didn’t understand before. I frown; my hands are shaking again, and the tea’s sloshed over the cracked rim and onto my black suit.

I still remember...

The streets were wet, shining, and fresh like anything after a cold autumn day. Puddles and moist leaves spilled across our path. We were like a lost part of a paper chain, living in the briefest minute, second. There was no shame in who heard, or who saw; what they would say or think. It was our world, in the charcoal nights, and we made it light. It was simple.

So often, we’d see lit windows, each a different picture from the next. Those windows were what we escaped from, laughing carelessly at the abandon in the wet avenues before us.

I’ve really lost that world.

I unlock the door, ignoring Margaret’s questioning stare and half-wondering whether or not I’ve really gone off the deep end.

“Put the kids to bed.” And I slam the door. The roads are wet, and the couple’s gone (probably never was there in the first place), but I don’t mind. The paper chain’s already been torn. The graveyard’s on the east side of town.