I love the out of focus background on this picture, softening the stone wall and highlighting the white pointed petals in the foreground.
Grandad
The noise is constant.
In the hall outside I can hear the rustle of starched uniforms, the squeak of a rubble sole and the endless movement of harried people with too much to do and not enough time to do it in. Inside the room, there is too much time and not enough to do. The four walls echo with the hum of machinery and the dry rasp of laboured breathing.
I feel guilty because my mind is full of the mundane and self-absorbed thoughts rather than me considering the man who lies a few feet away.
I don’t want to be here.
My foot itches. I wish I could take my shoe off and scratch it. You can’t take your shoes off in here!
I’m starving, should’ve had breakfast. I could really go for a lemon muffin.
Why is the air so dry?
It feels as though the air molecules are dehydrated and trying to regain their moisture from me. My skin feels too tight across my forehead, and an arid tickle has started at the back of my throat.
“Jenny?” His voice is barely a whisper above the crinkle of the sheets as he stirs.
“Hey, Grandad. You ok?”
“Tip top!” He gives a dry chuckle which turns into a cough. I fetch the water from the bedside table and hold it so he can take a sip. He struggles to swallow, and a trickle of water escapes his lips. I put the glass down and blot the side of his face gentle.
“Mom has just taken Nan for a cup of tea. They’ll be back in a minute.”
He pats the bed beside him. “Sit down a sec, Pet. Sit with a tired old man a minute.” I can never resist him. I was Grandad’s Pet from the day I was born, or so they all tell me. I perch on the very edge of the bed and take his hand in mine. Although old, he had always been such a strong, solid-seeming man. Swinging me up onto his shoulders as a child so I could see all of the world. Now, I am careful. His hands feel fragile. Like a bundle of autumn leaves and dried twigs, the slighted pressure could cause them to crumble into dust.
“What’s up with you then?”
He gives me the barest of smiles, as though it takes enormous effort to hold up the corners of his mouth, but exhaustion does not dim the sly twinkle in his eye. “What’s the opposite of coffee?”
I roll my eyes and return his grin. “Dunno, what’s the opposite of coffee?”
“Sneezy!” He replies and a dry cackle escapes him. Laughter fizzes up inside my chest and tumbles out. The joke is terrible, but I laugh because he is so delighted with it. It is so typically Grandad.
“What are you two up to?” Mom and Nan stand in the doorway looking slightly bemused. I look to Grandad, still swallowing down my giggles.
“Nothing at all,” he winks at me. “Alright now, it’s time for you to be getting on, let an old man get some rest and visit with your Nan and Mom.” I pat his hand and slide from the bed. I lean over and kiss him, feeling the hollowness of his cheeks under the wrinkled skin.
“Love you, Grandad.”
“Love you, Pet.”
I closed the door to his room, knowing I probably wouldn’t see him again.
The Gathering dark
This week I have the honour of featuring on the blog of the fantastic Rebecca Yelland.
Hop over here to read something a little “dark” from me.
A rugged shoreline (while on lunch at the office!)
Poppy fields
In the folds of petals
Porcelain
You stand alone, blinded by darkness. There is no sight and no sound. All you can taste and smell is the tang of your fear. With all other senses rendered useless, you strain against your skin to feel. The blackness pushes back, both trapping you, and making you feel vulnerable as it stretches to infinity on all sides.
Your reward warmth. It slides up your arm, drawing goosebumps in its wake. You should invite it, but it freezes you with its heat. Not welcome a breeze, a snuffling breath.
It moves over your shoulder, brushing against strands of your hair that beg to flee this strange presence. Coldness touches the crease between your neck and collarbone and then pulls back, as though the terrible unknown has tasted you. You fight the urge to break into a blind run.
You need to see it but don’t want to at the same time. Your eyes stain at the edge of their field of vision until finally, they pull your head to the side. You see it, and part of you wishes to return to the unknown blindness. A pale porcelain face with black, gaping holes where eyes should be. In return, the sight of you is tumbling into the endless nothingness of its eyes. More terrifying than it looking at you, is the fact that it shouldn’t be able to, and yet it is. With its head in a coquettish tilt to the side, it considers you from an unfathomable abyss surrounded by the jagged edges of its shattered eye-holes.
Finally, a sound fills the space between you. A sharp cracking that reminds you of breaking glass and bones. The perfect smoothness of the face begins to crack and collapse. The china pieces tumble inwards, spinning into the nothingness contained within the creature. A ragged hole has opened, frozen forever in a silent scream.
It wants to make you scream too. The knowledge is imparted from nowhere but is so certainly true that it infuses every part of your being and each muscle screams at you to move. With your heart hammering terror through you, you turn on your heel and run.
It gives chase, arms outstretched in a twisted parody of longing.
The dark dissolves into peace, of a sort. The dream is gone, and the room comes into focus. Light seeps through the curtains but the terror drums in you still, with the strange feeling that it has followed you into waking.
