Streaks Of Red and Gold

Your hands shake. Like the rest of you, they are old and gnarled and worn. Rough lines and calluses bite deep into the sunken skin of your flesh, and you both despise and crave the scars in equal measure because the pain hurts, but it’s also the last real proof that you still have of a life lived oh so long ago.

It helps to tether you to reality - through the haze of half-buried memories and the useless ramblings of an old woman. The itches continue to scratch away at the base of your skull.

Madness, you think, has many forms. 

It’s just you out here. You don’t mind, though. 

Sometimes, the quiet is nice. It fills your head with an enchanting melody that no one else hears, and it’s gratifying to have that one something for yourself. It keeps you going and carries you away into a world of your own making. The forest thrums in sync with your heartbeat, and for a moment, you can close your eyes and pretend to be part of something bigger.

You walk through the many paths in your mind. Seared behind your eyelids is the moving visage of your surroundings that you could have easily walked in your sleep, had you wanted to. 

You see the world through clarity in this way.

Down by the river, the herons have made nests deep within the old oaks. You see the birds most often in groups of three or four - a big one and two younger ones. The babies continue to stomp their thin legs and squawk discontentedly, begging to be fed. In the lower branches of the massive woods lived the wrens and warblers, black and red ants, caterpillars and cicadas.

The cicadas keen and gurgle and wail. They shed clear brown skins that cling in clumps to the sides of the pillars of your dwelling, and sometimes even in the torn sheets of the screen doors. Sometimes, you see a cicada half-emerged from itself. It’s a living thing, shiny-eyed and green, near to fleeing from its spent skin like a body flying free from its ghost. 

You swatted at the flies first, and then the wasps.

Then, you fix up the porch swing with the length of rope clutched in one hand and the splintered wood in the other as you work on cleaning away the jagged edges. There, you sat drunk on cheap liquor, patching up your old denims and watching the wind move through the trees.

In that moment, you are not alone.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-

The garden is a queer one. It’s a mismatched patchwork of clumped weeds and the colourful smears of wild flowers, both laid out like scattered confetti against the flat surface of a land that you yourself had toiled over for hours. The soil has learned to drink in your tears and your sweat. This place is almost sacred to you, because it’s where you bled and fought and broke. 

It’s also a great source of frustration as well, because nature has a will of its own and cannot be forced, so you have to resort to coaxing out the sprouts to yield to the design that you had so painstakingly created in your mind. 

It's not just the plants, though.

You hang small glass figurines from the graceful arches of the willow trees. Your experiments with mud and sticks and twines leave all sorts of discombobulated and misshapen lumps scattered around on the ground, but you happen to like it anyway so you decide to keep it. Little hooks that refuse to let go, and it’s a culmination of everything that you once were and might never be again. 

Wind chimes cling from above like silver rain, a relic from the previous owners, and they make the most piteous and mournful sounds as the breeze brushes up against them. It's heart-wrenching and ethereal, and they keep you up at night sometimes.

Unfortunately, you cannot seem to find it in your heart to remove them, and a part of you is viciously glad to know that you are not the only thing being haunted from the spectres of the past. The ghosts are not yours alone to bear, and that makes breathing a tiny bit more bearable.

Quilting - you used to do that, you remember. You used to be able to gather the broken scraps in your hands and create something brand new. Beauty from destruction. The new from the old. It’s ironic now because it turns out that you are your own failed project. 

Sweet mother of lord, you really are a Frankenstein of your own making.

The thought amuses you, and you snort out loud. It's one of the few times you dare to shatter the illusion of complete calm, and it shows in your voice when it comes out raspy and cracked with disuse. You sound like an old hag.

(The children call you a witch. 

You put on your most doddering harmless smile, and wave.)

Your hands and fingernails continue to be caked with dirt and the red rusts of fertiliser. Your back aches discontentedly as you kneel down and continue to tend to the seeds. Little green heads peek out shyly from the shelter of the seed, and you cannot help but caress them with tender strokes. 

The sun sinks into the horizon. The moon climbs higher into the glittering expanse of the night sky, and the moonlight casts silver and grey streaks across your face.

You blink, startled at the rapid progression of time. 

Slowly, very slowly, you rise and hobble your aching body back into the house.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-

There's a monotonous rhythm in the life that you have carved out for yourself. The passage of time is bleached, and you sometimes cannot tell when one day begins and when the other ends. It's an ouroboros of routine, rinse and repeat.

Mondays used to taste of peanut butter. Jam-and-jelly and the loving caresses of Mother as she used to pack your lunch. You remember the whiff of perfume and thyme, and the sensation of arms enveloping you in warmth. You hoard the memories fiercely.

You were young too, once, you think, and stomp into the cramped kitchen. The cabinets are thrown open with a loud clatter. You pull out a porcelain teacup and stare at it. Next to the grey and muted colours of your surroundings, it's practically glowing white. Hell, it even smells fresh.

You breathe in. And resume the ritual.

You smash every teacup against the ground. You watch it shatter and break. The rage and anguish and bitterness bubbles and froths up to the surface, and you let yourself scream.

The teacup doesn't gather itself up, and neither do you.