The walls around me had turned the dull yellow of a windy
winter morning. I let the dullness wrap herself around me. I shut my eyes to
the sounds of laughs that had long since peeled away from the aging wall. I
couldn’t smile, even though the image I saw in my mind was of a little girl
laughing and running. Dim walls trembled under the weight of her memory. I
tried to pat away the white that the crumbling wall had smeared on me. I left
clouds of white swirling helplessly in the empty room. Black and grey cobwebs
huddled together in the cold corners. The image was recurrent, and I wondered
where to bury it. I looked around the emptiness. The house had been stripped
clean of all living thoughts. The walls and floors writhed in the echoes of
those who had lived, and those who had died, and those who had abandoned
memories.
I shut the door behind me as I walked out of the room, out
into the greying hall. It swung, without a whisper, into place. I let my feet
land in the wiry webs of all things forgotten. My feet grew tired of the
resistance and yearned to collapse under my weight on the dust ridden floor.
Talk to me, I thought to the blackening brown dust that lay
in semi-formed spirals on the floor. They scattered under the gush of my warm
breath. I wished to be forgotten like the laugh and lies, like the secrets and
whispers of a past that had allowed itself to be forgotten and stowed away by
the overwhelming rush of hurrying time. I wondered what to do with my wandering,
drowning mind. I watched the darkness as it poured in from the cracks of
windows that had long been sealed shut by the force of billowing winds and fiery
heat. The rubber washers were cracked and had begun to crumble. They had
spilled over the silvery rims of the window sills like powdery ash. I
remembered the time when the freshly scrubbed windows had held the face of a
smiling girl, clapping noisily at the kids who ran around and played. Images of
happiness gain, again my smile froze in my mind. Were all my memories of
happiness being strangled? Where had my laughs gone, then? I drew my limbs in
closer, pulling the black snow in closer. I waited for sorrow to force silence
aside and embrace me like a frenzied lover. I waited.
The walls of the forgotten house rang sharply as I laughed
humorlessly when the tears didn’t pour out. Spurned, again by a lover. I had to
rise to rid myself of morbidity. But how could I, when the walls chose to cling
so weakly, so powerlessly? Spindly claws of webs had
spiraled themselves around me. They tore pitifully as I stood up. My feet rang
noisily through the house as I stumbled outwards. Everything vanished behind
the brown door as I fumbled with the latch. I touched the door with my palm, my
mind yearned to wrench it open, to drown again. I pressed my face to the door,
feeling powdery brown dust crawl against my cheek. I whispered to hazy images
of a little girl running.
Bury me, as you did
my memory, my child.
