lamplighter
She got off the phone with her realtor and rushed into the kitchen, absentmindedly getting out the spaghetti she had been cooking for lunch. Her room was in disarray, everything heading towards a state of entropy. Her penne, far from being al dente as she had thought when she had initially felt the stiffness, was undone.
It took a while coming out here by bike. My butt hurt, even though Shirl did all the pedalling. Still, this was nice. I feel the sea breeze in hair and the rising sun smiling on my face, but I'm a little cold. I can't stop myself from looking out at sea though. She was right, as always. It did take my mind off things at home.
She put on 'Eye of the Tiger' on her iPod while she started last round of the place. Sweat seeped into her headband, and her eyes watered from the effort. There it was again; the wall. She felt sluggish, physically and mentally defeated. Still, she wouldn't stop. She put one feet in front of the other robotically, riding on her muscle memory to carry her forward.
She tried hard to find somebody to relate to her. She went to the library, the park, the bistro down the street, just to sit there and look around herself. She kept on looking and watching, but nobody had that same gleam in their eye as she did.
I sneezed as I looked at the near empty jar that he left behind. He always did like pepper. He added it to everything he made, when he did make anything. I stared at the glass jar for a long time, just thinking of him, and it made me sad at how much I was thinking of it, as thinking of him made me sad.
I looked in disgust at the trophy he brought back from his hunting excursion - a handsome deer head. I hated how he looked so pleased with himself. He must have saw my grimace for he seemed offended, even though he was in the wrong for killing such a beautiful animal for 'sport'.
That book.
People have long thrown it away; they use it as a paper stand perhaps, or they might have stowed it away somewhere. They might even use it as a coffee coaster.
But not me. Mine is still kept safe.
I leaf through it sometimes, thinking back about those days when that same book meant so much more.
What one could do with a smile. It brightened up my day just looking at her face. I haven't seen it in a long time, and it brought me back to those carefree April afternoons before she had to go into the hospital.