This is for Prompt 2 from 5-Minute Daily Writing Prompts: 501 Prompts to Unleash Creativity and Spark Inspiration by Tarn Wilson.
I'm a fair man. Did she do it? I don't know. Is it a possibility? Of course. Under the right set of conditions, anyone is capable of anything. I've seen enough to know that. And if I'm being honest, I'm leaning towards guilty.
The bedroom door is closed. The only door in the house that's shut. Is it an oasis? A tranquil space in a chaotic existence, the door shut to keep life from intruding? Only one way to find out. I open the door into her private world.
The bed is huge, encompassing the majority of the room. It's a shared space...or at least it was. Her husband's death is the whole reason I'm here. The bed is made. No one's slept in it for close to a week now.
It's odd. As big as the bed is, one of the pillows is shoved all the way to one side. But then again, I notice that the bed itself is not in the center of the room, but pushed closer to one side...not all the way, but you'd definitely have to crab-walk sideways to get into it. And it's not out of necessity. There's plenty of space on the other side. Or at least there would be without all the clutter.
Shoeboxes and totes and plastic bags and loose papers are scattered all over the floor on the left of the bed. Stuff and more stuff, stacked to the ceiling, like one of those reality shows about hoarders. Three quarters of the room is covered in piles. It's claustrophobic.
To the right of the bed, the side with the cramped floor space and the pillow riding the bed's edge, it's disjointedly tidy. There's a long, narrow bookshelf against the wall, running parallel to the bed. There are women's pajama's folded neatly on one of the shelves. Next to them, there's a clear plastic shoebox with matched socks and underwear inside. On the next shelf down, a stack of blue jeans and another of t-shirts in a few different colors, but plain, no designs or slogans. On the bottom shelf, a pair of gray sneakers and a worn pair of cheap flip flops, with an open space, probably for the shoes she was currently wearing. What kind of woman has a total of three pairs of shoes?
On top of the bookshelf, there's a lamp with a transparent ruby red base, an amber colored glass bowl with three cigarette butts and their ashes in it, and a lime green ceramic turtle with a doofy looking face...I pick it up and the jingle of coins tells me it's a piggy bank. The only thing left is a pale yellow mixing bowl, stained and crackled with age. An antique lady's handkerchief, embroidered in one corner with small purple flowers, covers the top. Inside is a small plastic deer, its front leg broken off and laying in the bottom of the bowl, and a tiny hand-carved wooden horse rearing back on two legs, its broken off grass green base also sits in the bowl. Why not just glue these things back together? The pieces are right there...
Above the bookshelf, hanging on the dark blue wall, the only thing on any of the walls barring cobwebs, is a reproduction of The Beach at Sainte-Adresse by Monet. It's one of the few pieces of art I could name, only because I have the same painting hanging in my home office. I liked the colors of it. It was only a google search while bored one day that clued me in to a deeper meaning. A contrast of tourists and rich people's sail boats, with fishermen in the foreground. Some people working hard, while others have the luxury of whiling away their days. Oh well...the colors are still nice...
It's a bit unnerving just how sparse this quarter of the room is in comparison to the rest of the space. Dust and nicotine cover almost everything. Crumbs and cat hair coat the floor. This is the space of someone who has slowly given up.
I can see her now, shoved to the edge of the bed. She's staring up at her small piece of art, wondering why she doesn't get to take up more space in the world. She's tried so hard to keep things neat and tidy, but she fought a losing battle. His garbage encroaching on her world, slowly taking away piece after piece of her calmness and identity. And she lets him. She lets him do it. She hasn't cleaned in years...she just gave up.
I've seen it in the rest of the house too...dust on everything but what gets used. And why would she clean? There's barely enough open floor space to walk, let alone sweep. You can hardly move for the piles of junk. You can tell which small spaces she occupies in this house. The dishes are clean, the fridge, the kitchen counters, the toilet and shower and and the bathroom sink...and everywhere else, debris of an overbearing husband piling up around her. More and more. Crushing her.
I'm not supposed to get personally involved. We're supposed to be emotionless and robotic, but I'm only human. I pity this woman.
The thing is, she has been primed to snap. You can't be pushed down forever. Human beings are like springs... You can only take so much pressure before you push back. Turn the crank...turn the crank for years and years, till one day when you least expect it...POP goes the weasel.
Comments
Post a Comment
I'd love to hear what you think: