In time, a woman appears among the detritus of her daily living, among the rooms and boxes and shelves that have caved her, among the cupboards, drawers, and cabinets that haunt her, and she says enough.
Saying this, she feels a shudder in her bones, a shimmer.
She throws open the window, remembering in her marrow how it felt as a girl to swing, toes pointed to the clouds.
She remembers how it felt to run sky clad in the cool lake water, splashing and swimming. How under water, her body expanded into a body of water, and she became a loon, an otter, a fish.
She remembers how it felt to be caressed and kissed long ago when love was new.
She remembers the first moments she held each of her children to her chest, finally smiling into their new pink, scrunched, rosebud faces.
Enough! She shouts out the window.
Enough! She moves throughout the house, room by room, window by window, openning them each and letting the midmorning air tumble in.
Enough, she says as she looks at the trees that lines her street.
I’ve had enough. I have more than enough. I am grateful but I am tired. She breathes.
It feels like the first time in a very long time. As if she’d been holding her breath for years. As if her child’s first breath was her last.
But that’s not right. I’ve been breathing all these years, she reasons. Afterall, I’m here.
Yes, but have you been living? The house asks.
Of course I have. Right here. You know. You’ve been here with me all these years, she tells the house.
She’s alive.
For the first time in a long time, years, it feels a part of her has returned.
The curtains flutter before her. The sun flickers behind whisps of clouds.
The woman breathes in a full chest of air and slowly exhales.
Welcome back, the home says.
Thank you, she answers.
A butterfly passes by the open window.
A car drives down the road.
The sun cuts squares of light along the carpet.
Emily —
Love the one word title, the movement through the piece, how you set a scene that feels real and also a bit threatening.
Favorite lines: pink, scrunched, rosebud faces,” “as of her child’s first breath was her last,” and the house asking if you have been living.
Great ending.
Thanks for sharing this!
K.
hi Emily,
thanks for sharing. i enjoy threshold moments, in life, and in writing. this character’s grasping at new thoughts and feelings shows the courage of being handed an unknown affordance and embracing it. The gratitude of the speaker’s last words to the house is mirrored by the imagery that follows them in the final three lines.
There’s a lot I really like about this piece, Emily. For starters, the opening paragraph:”In time, a woman appears among the detritus of her daily living, among the rooms and boxes and shelves that have caved her, among the cupboards, drawers, and cabinets that haunt her, and she says enough.” (One long sentence but it covers all that nicely.)
Next we have 3 sentences/paragraphs of “remembering” and then 4 of “enough.” I especially like: “Enough, she says as she looks at the trees that lines her street.”
And then I like the conversation with the house: “Yes, but have you been living? The house asks.”
(And these lines are special too: “The curtains flutter before her. The sun flickers behind whisps of clouds.”)
“Welcome back, the home says.”
And the ending is perfect:
“A butterfly passes by the open window.
A car drives down the road.
The sun cuts squares of light along the carpet.”
Very creative and imaginative.
This is lovely! I really enjoyed the rhythm of it and the layering on of sensations, of realizations. I enjoyed the shift when the home enters as a character. I had a sense of so much moving, shifting, changing for the narrator, all within, while they remain in the same physical place. Very relatable for me, that sense of being subsumed by the “stuff” and others in one’s life.
This paragraph – gorgeous: “She remembers how it felt to run sky clad in the cool lake water, splashing and swimming. How under water, her body expanded into a body of water, and she became a loon, an otter, a fish.”
This is absolutely beautiful. For a second mid-content, I was afraid she was going to through all the plants out the window, and NO! Thank goodness. Sounds like a woman who’s moved into a new life-strong and spiritual realization!
Cheers to you.
j
Hi Emily, there is a powerful simplicity that is revealed here. The speaker’s unique relationship to house, space, and what surrounds us in our immediacy of existence. I love the use of repetition, which echoes that which does repeat in one’s life, or thoughts. I also enjoyed the dialogue exhange and how inanimate objects come alive, in a magical and lovely manner. This is wondrously strange yet, everyday, also not! Continue on.
Emily: This is a lovely story that allows the reader to quickly inhabit the narrator’s internal world and feel the tension. “Detritus.” “Caved in.”
The middle section, with vivid descriptions of childhood bliss, first loves, and motherhood, are richly descriptive. “Toes pointed to the clouds.” “Run sky clad to the cool lake water.”
I like the use of breath to represent the release of tension. Thanks!