| 5 The phone has been silent for several days now. My apartment is dead. It is filled with the unbearable stillness that makes mad men sane and geniuses shudder. Several fresh white snowflakes cling to the wind, they drift past me on the balcony. There is a slight nip in the air, it screams of winter. Below me on the street, hundreds of busy businessmen and women struggle to make it to work on time. Their multi-coloured coats and scarves weave in and out like a squirrel in traffic. I sip on my black coffee. The aroma fills my nostrils and swims into my lungs. The coffee is almost astrong as when Sol used to make it. He couldn�t stand it if it was too weak. He had a strong heart, and a good one at that. I miss him terribly. I have started to wear Sol�s bathrobe now. I let Blythe wear the prized robe before I had a chance to, and now I feel like a traitor. Her scent, the heavy flower perfume and herbal shampoo, overpowers Sol�s. Still, the soft material is comforting, even if it has been contaminated. I burrow my face into its warm interior. In the distance, I can hear two sirens blaring. Their unmistakable whine winds through the cluttered streets, and the ambulance and police car cut their way through the traffic like a dart. They run two red lights, and nearly crash into an ignorant taxi. I open the sliding glass door, and set the coffee mug on a table. The sirens are getting louder. I can feel them in my chest. Their unrelenting beat and whine become part of my pulse. Suddenly, they stop. On the street, hundreds of people are dodging the police and paramedics who are carrying a stretcher into the lobby. They don�t even get out of their way. Some gawk. I can hear excited and frightened banter from 7 floors up. �Get to work,� I feel like shouting, �there�s nothing to see here.� I giggle. Sol would have shouted something rude down to them, as well. �This is not a butcher shop,� he would say, �quit mooching for the scraps.� Men are talking in the hallway. Like the sirens, they come closer and closer, until they are rapping on Mrs. Walker�s apartment door. I can hear her tv through the wall. Theme music whistles through the thin wallpaper. The paramedics burst through her door, and I can hear the wood breaking. The mens� voices are muffled by The Price is Right. Bob Barker�s distinct fake demeanor drowns out the mens� shouts. I can picture Bob standing on the stage, the cheesy microphone in his hand, calling up the next unsuspecting contestant. The next contender, a fat man, bounds down the aisles, blubber flying behind him and sweat staining his new shirt that he had bought specially for television. All the while, the paramedics rush to find Mrs. Walker�s limp body. Two moving trucks are parked outside on the curb. They have been there for most of the day. Five big men have been dragging Mrs. Walker�s possessions down the stairs, and dumping them into the bulky trucks. Several days ago, when Mrs. Walker didn�t show up at her routine doctor appointment, the police were notified. They had stormed into Mrs. Walker�s apartment, and found her unconscious and barely able to breathe. I was told that she had blacked out after a week of nothing but drinking. The poor woman. I wonder if they are taking all of her things to the nursing home. No one ever came to see Sylvia, and she rarely left her apartment for more than twenty minutes, so they must not be going to her family. Sylvia�s lovely red satin sofa will be laid to rest in the middle of a landfill. Her picture frames, holding memories from her childhood, will be sold in antique stores for one dollar each, and the full liquor bottles will be dumped down the toilet. No one will change her broken hall light. I sit in front of my small television, and stare at its flat screen. How someone could spend their life sitting in front of a box and not experience the world is beyond me. I had traveled all around the world, but had given it up the day that Sol died. Now, the only world that I know is the one within these apartment walls. Page 6 More Stories Lair Homepage |