Histories (a fictionalized account)
This entry was originally posted on 16 December 2003 at 12:23 p.m.
We were in Delaware County, but nowhere near the state of Delaware. The town that was our destination was named for a city in India, though its inhabitants had probably never left the United States.
We had come to gather the remains of her belongings. I don't know how long it had been since she was last there, but i suspect it had been years at best. For some reason, i was nervous about it.
I don't remember what the outside of the house looked like, but i suspect it was unremarkable, maybe even ramshackle. It was the kind of house people don't bother to renovate, situated in a town that people do their best to leave.
The lady of the house welcomed us, her voice restrained, hiding a number of emotions so muddled that it was impossible to identify any of them. She led us in.
What was this place? I was surrounded by secrets, by histories never told, by words unspoken for so long that even their echoes had yellowed and begun to crumble. What was this place?
In a chair in a dusty old living room sat a man in an easy chair, smoking a cigarette before an ancient television. He looked as though he never stood.
None of the windows were open. In the stillness of the air, the smoke of a thousand cigarettes had risen and separated itself into distinct layers, each one thicker than the next, until a complete stratigraphy had formed. I wondered just how long he had been there, smoking away, unmoving, leaving the layers--his one true history--undisturbed.
Who were these people?
Without a word, we ascended the stairs until we came to a room: boxes, crates. Her old treasures, remnants from college, gathered together for her to pick through and take home. She offered me any items of interest. I selected a book. I wondered whether the friend whose parents had so graciously stored her belongings still remembered her, whether they still spoke. I wondered what had happened to bring their histories, once shared, to this point: old notebooks in milk crates, old books in cardboard boxes, mementi and detritus from an era left to memory.
And in the end i didn't ask. We brought down her things, loaded them into her blazer and drove away. The drive home revolved around other things: gas, dinner, small talk. Anything but history.
I still have the book.
We were in Delaware County, but nowhere near the state of Delaware. The town that was our destination was named for a city in India, though its inhabitants had probably never left the United States.
We had come to gather the remains of her belongings. I don't know how long it had been since she was last there, but i suspect it had been years at best. For some reason, i was nervous about it.
I don't remember what the outside of the house looked like, but i suspect it was unremarkable, maybe even ramshackle. It was the kind of house people don't bother to renovate, situated in a town that people do their best to leave.
The lady of the house welcomed us, her voice restrained, hiding a number of emotions so muddled that it was impossible to identify any of them. She led us in.
What was this place? I was surrounded by secrets, by histories never told, by words unspoken for so long that even their echoes had yellowed and begun to crumble. What was this place?
In a chair in a dusty old living room sat a man in an easy chair, smoking a cigarette before an ancient television. He looked as though he never stood.
None of the windows were open. In the stillness of the air, the smoke of a thousand cigarettes had risen and separated itself into distinct layers, each one thicker than the next, until a complete stratigraphy had formed. I wondered just how long he had been there, smoking away, unmoving, leaving the layers--his one true history--undisturbed.
Who were these people?
Without a word, we ascended the stairs until we came to a room: boxes, crates. Her old treasures, remnants from college, gathered together for her to pick through and take home. She offered me any items of interest. I selected a book. I wondered whether the friend whose parents had so graciously stored her belongings still remembered her, whether they still spoke. I wondered what had happened to bring their histories, once shared, to this point: old notebooks in milk crates, old books in cardboard boxes, mementi and detritus from an era left to memory.
And in the end i didn't ask. We brought down her things, loaded them into her blazer and drove away. The drive home revolved around other things: gas, dinner, small talk. Anything but history.
I still have the book.
posted by Circus at 12:27 PM
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