Aurora

It was past noon at the small town in North Carolina, people are anywhere but inside their house. The Hope Town is an old village where people at their pantaloons stages spend the whole day on their rocking chair or simply on their warm cozy bed that do not help to ease the coldness of life they feel. Houses are old and bricked, everyone has chimneys, fireplace, rocking chair on the front porch and a small flower garden in front. Designs of the houses a merely identical and only differ with their colored roofs or some broken window, or some torn porch or the dried lawn. 

Then there we are, inside an old white house at the corner of the 8th street called Nobility. I am watching my dearest Aurora knitting a white scarf for almost five years because she always end up with messing it up when she got out of her mind. I'm watching her listening to the radio, she always listen to that station every afternoon. Her favorite songs of The Carpenters always plays and her foot tap with every beat. She is still on her white flannel dress. Her skin is clammy and almost white. Her lips are chapped and purple, her face looks dusty and gray. She had her hair into a bun even if it is few to stay up. She kept on knitting while looking at the big glass window where she place her rocking chair. She barely left her chair, she even sleep there at night when her mood doesn't go all the way. She barely eat nowadays, she only likes when food taste salty which is not good for her. A bread keeps her and her coffee pot all day. She can't even drink a liter of water a day. Her body is nothing like before, the her dress flung to her skinny and bony body gives me the melancholy. A melancholy of her being out of her state. She isn't in responding to her medication, no drug can take her back. No one can take back my Aurora, nothing.

I rolled my wheelchair and stroll over her, it's time for our dinner. I poke her and she don't even look at me.

"Aurora... it's time to eat. We have some grilled tuna for dinner. Come on, let's eat." I spoke to her but she never take a glance.

"Aurora.. you have to---" I was cut because she put her finger on my lips and she started singing. Her voice is breaking and it is too low. It doesn't sound the same the last time I heard her singing Close to You. That is her most favorite song, she used to sing it almost everyday, while cooking, cleaning, or taking a bath. Her voice was soft and melodious back then, I love whenever she sings for me while her fingers fumble with the strands of my hair as we watch the sunrise. Hearing her singing gives me chills, after a very long time I hear her voice again. It so heart swelling. It was all gold. All of the memories we had shared, every laughter, every tears, I remember everything. All of those memories, I have it in my heart and mind, but to her, it wasn't. Nothing were left to her, everything vanished constantly. It faded so quickly in her mind, and nothing will be back, not a single one. But I hope she has something on her heart, something that she still carry even nothing were clear to her. Something about me, something about us.

I tried to put my hands over her but she just swat it away. I look at her and she look frantic, she is in panic.

"Who are you?!!!" She freak out and start screaming. Her voice is full of emotions, she is afraid. For another time, my heart is leaping, it is breaking again. I tried to calm her down but she is wagging out. I cannot stand up because none of my legs are working. I called Allan through the beeper he said for me to kept. 

Allan is Aurora's private nurse, he come quickly from his room in our house. He put Aurora into sleep with his injections, to calm Aurora in the easiest way is to put her into medicine that will make her asleep.

"Dawn, take a rest now." Allan said calmly and carries Aurora to her room and tuck her under the sheets. I still can't figure why Allan keeps calling my Aurora with a name Dawn. He must be forgetting the names of his patients. Allan is working too much to take care of us.