Twin Themes
Yellow stained eyes looked up the basement stairs from the wine cellar. Thin light glowed from beneath the kitchen door. Wine soaked skin, the aroma of aged alcohol part of him in his too rapidly aging body. A cracked mirror on the back of the kitchen door, a very odd place for a mirror, showed a forty year old man in his early sixty’s considering coming back to life. Could he reverse that image of agedness or would he forever be recognized by his friends and family as that old guy who is always coming up from the wine cellar? Easier to slip out the side door of the basement. No flight of stairs to try to climb. He could return to the friendly noisy loneliness of the bar room. In the kitchen there was a special angry loneliness of shame stirred and cooked by many in his family. A recipe passed handily through generations. Maybe it is safer to stay in the basement with dusty wine bottles. They lie quietly on their shelves, waiting patiently for someone to take care of them.
~~~~~
Can there be a happy ending in these themes of loneliness and indecision?
“Things can harden meaningfully in the moment of indecision.”
~ John Ashbery, Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror
No comments:
Post a Comment