Wednesday, July 2, 2008

the appropriate stages of grief - introduction to a short story

Claire was standing at the kitchen sink. Her silvery white hair hanging loose down her back, her posture the picture of frailty. Her creased hands were gripping the edges of the counter, fingers flat against the sink. The kitchen is dark. The glass windows are open; it’s the season for screens and Claire can hear the crickets and frogs in the night, the occasional crunch of gravel from a car. The scene in the backyard was through silhouettes; trees, the porch swing, the hammock, Noel’s rusted bicycle leaning against a tree, with vines woven through the spokes.

The air that filtered through the screen was cool on her legs beneath the floating fabric of her grey skirt. The hair on the back of her arms stood up, but she did not move to close the window. Claire was thinking about boxes. She was constantly craving cardboard, sturdy corrugated structures, stacked flattened in the backs of grocery and retail stores. She was always approaching sales people inquiring about boxes. Her house was a mess. She needed to keep sifting through the items. She had thrown the majority of Noel and her belongings in boxes that she hadn’t known what to mark. “Garbage?” “Garage sale?” “Kids?” “Amity?” Claire knew what she didn’t want to keep, but past that – after leaping from the third cement step all the way down to the sidewalk, ankles curving to steady the foot, she had landed, brittle bones intact – she didn’t know what to do. Either way, they were things that she didn’t want, so she marked the boxes “unwanted.” Her daughters thought it was harsh, maybe she would agree except that it was true, and she wanted to focus on the truth. Peel back the skin; expose tiny bones, watery blood leaking over flimsy sides.