Beginning at first the middle and then to one end doubled over, it was the length of thread the man was looking for. Twice in half and double the quarters of a bill of legal tender. Short price on a potentially long yarn. One to replace the strand flitting in the wind at the end of his tail.
Dressed and pressed in his maroon vest, the one his wife picked out for him and said brought out his eyes (and they did), but clashed with the belt he picked up at a garage sale. Neat save for the dangling thread; black in one light, a ghost in another. Always there to remind him of her. Gone now. Still, she holds onto his heart as he does to the thread on his vest. Tangentially and slightly hopeful.
Every morning he wakes up. Barely, weakly. Motivation too with his wife. Taken from him and there in the past tense he wishes to live all the tomorrows that remain underfoot. Stepping through the walls of their empty antebellum home. No help, no humour.
Each day he wanders the town. Shadowing his former self, fading into the background as he does. Fading and rendering his existence not his own, only of his movements. Searching for a needle that takes the thread that takes his life that takes away all this pain. Slowly it burns inside him, a longing to depart, to escape the meandering effervescence that stinks up the path leading from their front door.
He does not want the needle, though he searches for it. He searches for it in the knowing that he does not want it.
Once and when the needle is is when the unravelling begins. Keeping in his heart and his head, the helplessness of being alone and separate by fate and sad circumstance.
going to burn this sewer
Of keeping the only memory he has. Of the yellow oak days of sitting there in the parlour room as his wife tends to his loose threads. There, torn it again. And such a nice vest too. It brings out his eyes. As she always said.
There where they would sit in silence.
Now, just him alone.
Written on Monday, 14 December 2009