Solitude Her Keeper
"Sadness be the heart of me,
Suspend my days, prolong my nights,
Let me go, set me free,
Take my pain and let me be." -- SER 1998
Upon first glance, what's left of the little house down at the end of the overgrown driveway might seem simply lonely in the solitude imposed upon it, but that is a misperception. It holds the kind of stories mothers do not pass on to their daughters, nor fathers their sons. The kind of stories no one would want to remember.
A girl who lived here once, scared of the world, scared to be in it, hid herself behind the flower patterned wallpaper and somewhat warm, brown Berber carpeting. The wooden halls that once staunchly surrounded her room are now gone, the gentle and soothing memory of those who loved her now invisible to all who look upon the ruins.
Now all that is left is her hiding place, a haven of plaster and wood that held her dreams and fears, is orphaned from the home that loved her, tossed out among the skeletal trees and left to rot in the solitude that encompasses this gloomy forest. Where would stand the hallway there is only a frame of burnt out wood, blackened and old, creaking in the wind; the once soft and brown carpet now rots, covered by the mildew of leaves and rain.
Looking around this day, in the sunlight of autumnal gloom, one can be thankful things don't crawl out of the decay that pervades the surroundings. A stench hangs there, hovering above the sagging ceiling that is now also a roof, but its name goes unthought of because it is not a smell often experienced. If silence had a smell, would it perhaps smell like this? Only one who has lived it could know for certain.
The door to her room sags on its rusting hinges yet keeps its vigil still, as the sole border that now protects this one last tribute to the young semblance of aspiration that once dwelt here.
The doorknob creaks as it is turned; rust falls in tiny, clumped-up flakes to the floor, and the senses are overtaken with faded color and a smell of musty loneliness. The ceiling sags lowest in the middle; the plaster still wet from a previous nights rain, and the floor is covered with a white layer of powder from the buckling plaster that flakes slowly, as if to emanate snow. There are no large murals covering it, which makes it the only bare surface in the room.
The walls glare, an ever present scrapbook of a different time, silencing the eyes with the merest glance in their direction. The spidery cracks in the mirror glint with soft orange light that flits through the window and reflect the curling pictures hanging limp and tired on the walls.
They seem exhausted, these pictures, from hanging in exile for so long. The masking tape that held them fast to the once bone white walls now, bit by bit, crumbles into sand and slips into the iron skeleton of the bed or the remnants of the other furniture, not surprisingly made into homes now not only for memories but also for creatures, their little black shadows scurry about over the floor. They are not animals but souls with their own tales to tell, her friends once, now her only commemorators but not by choice. They were happy to see her go in a way so they could rest, but now they can only mourn, for they are almost forgotten. The glowing whites of their eyes glower at the presence of someone new, but they quickly lose interest and return to their hiding places, awaiting their master.
The must of the air hangs like a limp and frequently collapsing tent as a cloud blacks out what is left of the slowly dying sun and the room darkens for a moment, but then light returns slowly, creeping over the ruin and now the pictures are illuminated, subjectless and faded, all the images have disappeared with time and longing. Only faded paper remains to bear witness to this chamber of horror.
Each wall has its own personality; the most prominent is harsh, showing a dark side no one wanted to know, no one saw. Posters of heavy metal temper tantrums writhe in a simulated existence, one dimensional as they are; pieces of barbed wire, now rusting, are held to the wall by likewise rusting nails, and the crushed petals of browned and withered roses painstakingly glued to the barrier between her frailty and the ever present threat of the world moan with her inner demons and loneliness of fear. One could surmise that the wall would be blackened, charred by anguish if the painfully arranged collage were peeled back layer by layer, a sober thought indeed, but when one looks with pity, the walls seem to close in, not menacingly, but more childlike, a taunting, reprehensible innocence, and one can almost see her, the apparition pasting the pictures to her walls with love, both in sadness and joy, a devotion only she understood to this now withered but no less potent shrine.
To the left of the faded wall of pictures is a more modest but no less striking shrine of sorts, but to what or whom? Who could know but her? Black upon white, no other colors live here, but the odor of the paint no longer bites the nose with its ferocious fangs of noxious gas. The white is yellowed and gray now, faded and uncaring, snobbish and oblivious to the outside world in its own mire of decay. The life lies in the black paint, standing strong, only faded because of the filmy dust that covers the letters, but the two words in the right lower corner of the wall seem to roar a deeper meaning, though incomprehensible. They gleam vehemently of midnight, almost lacquered with feeling, and it is a question of how much time she spend absent from this spot than the time she spent knelt here, perhaps mourning or rejoicing or both, all at the same time. The eyes numb from the harshness and blur before the true meaning is comprehended, and the gaze is averted with an emotionless and confused tear, brought on obviously by the chalky plaster that is so clever a blanket across the matted and worn carpet and its decor of litter, a few orphaned pictures, some rocks and leaves and used matches, only a few.
Solitude Her Keeper, continued
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