You and (I suppose) I are waiting at a cold bus stop. We witness the moment, full morning, when the streetlights turn off.
Your eyes don't register a difference; the sun functions, so the streetlights need not expend themselves expelling illumination. Though you don't see their absence, your mind mourns the loss of electric light as if the current that maintained that glow was transferred to you as the downline— the discharge— you're shocked.
Only for a second before your body has soothed the fear of being left alone in the dark. Still, something has gone out of the still morning, stirring up a cocktail of losses. Extinguished lights. Extinguished life.
The headlights of the cars whirring past you are no comfort; you stare at the lamppost like you would an expected corpse. The cycle of lights at the intersection, the cycle of light in eyes and in street lamps rolls on. You watch the bulb wink out, as you would watch a person die. I see the pain twisting the skin by your eyes and empathize, offering my hand silently.
I know your grandmother lived until you were almost eight, well into the time you can remember. But you never met her before the dementia set in. Her mind left and her modeling grace left and she was left confined to a wheelchair, shaking slowly side-to-side. When you went downstairs to get a Rice Krispy or a butterscotch from Grandpa you avoided the woman with the white crochet blanket over her lap, because even though that was Grandma, it wasn't a person like any other in your seven-year-old experience.
She stopped eating eventually.
You forgot, as children do, and offered the chocolate cake that you heard she loved and your mom had to gently remind you that her mom wouldn't be around much longer. "Terminal" wasn't a word that meant anything to you. Standing in the bus terminal, you muse on this as the sun creeps higher over the mountains slowly dispelling the chill gloom of morning.
I muse with you as you remember standing at the bedside beside her. Grandma, left by so much, had finally left your Grandpa and your mom and you too. Pale, waxy, frozen, all the tremors stilled, stiffened.
You cried, because it was sad. The pure emotions of a child.
Fact is, you didn't know that woman at all. She was supposed to mean more than she did, and now you wish that it meant more to you that she is gone, like you wish your eyes could tell the difference when the streetlamps flickered out. But all you have is sadness detached, for a mind detached.
Eyes dark. Lights out. Evidence swallowed by the sun.
Full morning.
You abandon the streetlamps and board the bus that collects you from your abandonment.
I stay on the platform. Someone needs to mourn.
Your eyes don't register a difference; the sun functions, so the streetlights need not expend themselves expelling illumination. Though you don't see their absence, your mind mourns the loss of electric light as if the current that maintained that glow was transferred to you as the downline— the discharge— you're shocked.
Only for a second before your body has soothed the fear of being left alone in the dark. Still, something has gone out of the still morning, stirring up a cocktail of losses. Extinguished lights. Extinguished life.
The headlights of the cars whirring past you are no comfort; you stare at the lamppost like you would an expected corpse. The cycle of lights at the intersection, the cycle of light in eyes and in street lamps rolls on. You watch the bulb wink out, as you would watch a person die. I see the pain twisting the skin by your eyes and empathize, offering my hand silently.
I know your grandmother lived until you were almost eight, well into the time you can remember. But you never met her before the dementia set in. Her mind left and her modeling grace left and she was left confined to a wheelchair, shaking slowly side-to-side. When you went downstairs to get a Rice Krispy or a butterscotch from Grandpa you avoided the woman with the white crochet blanket over her lap, because even though that was Grandma, it wasn't a person like any other in your seven-year-old experience.
She stopped eating eventually.
You forgot, as children do, and offered the chocolate cake that you heard she loved and your mom had to gently remind you that her mom wouldn't be around much longer. "Terminal" wasn't a word that meant anything to you. Standing in the bus terminal, you muse on this as the sun creeps higher over the mountains slowly dispelling the chill gloom of morning.
I muse with you as you remember standing at the bedside beside her. Grandma, left by so much, had finally left your Grandpa and your mom and you too. Pale, waxy, frozen, all the tremors stilled, stiffened.
You cried, because it was sad. The pure emotions of a child.
Fact is, you didn't know that woman at all. She was supposed to mean more than she did, and now you wish that it meant more to you that she is gone, like you wish your eyes could tell the difference when the streetlamps flickered out. But all you have is sadness detached, for a mind detached.
Eyes dark. Lights out. Evidence swallowed by the sun.
Full morning.
You abandon the streetlamps and board the bus that collects you from your abandonment.
I stay on the platform. Someone needs to mourn.