to be written

prologue...

                                                         Thomas McAndrew

I have never really been very bold. And there is nothing more to say. Nothing is closer to the truth than that, and I am, truth be told, not afraid to admit my cowardice. It had always sort of separated me from the rest of my family, -- my rash, forward family who never hesitated to shout what was on their minds -- and my head always lowered when we had visitors (something that happened frequently, with the amount of individuals my father knew). I mumbled my one-word answers to the few questions I was asked, but as the youngest child of my two sisters, those questions were few. My hair fluttered in front of my face each time I tried to pick at my food, leaving my mother to brush it back to the sides. She always sat next to me at these gatherings, maybe for this exact reason. I never get the chance to ask her, so it will remain a mystery. 

From the bottom of my heart, I missed those times. The smell of my mother's cooking lingers in my nose, the summer air of Burlington, New Jersey, my home sweet home as it has always been, warms my face though the sun has set long ago. The view from my spacey, too big bedroom is a hologram in the back of my mind, and every feature on my older sister's face is clear, though my brain has become foggy over the years. My sister is dead now -- she died young, but what can we do when people die? There is only one way to go and it is up. 

Though my lust for life has never expired, my wish for death is upon me. My wrinkled hands are no longer beautiful and my face certainly not. My lover, though we never married, died years ago. The questions life has presented me have been answered. Routine has never been my style, and now I wake up each morning to eat the same breakfast, write in the same journal, socialize with the same neighbors, comment on the same "fine weather" (even if it is a blizzard or a thunderstorm), and go sit inside my same old house that I haven't redecorated in 20 years. 

Even the two servants that lived in my house were hoping for me to die soon. I was certain it wasn't because of their status in the household -- it was only them and me, and though I was old, I wasn't angry. I served them as much as they served me. They had their own rooms in my house, ate in the same dining room with me, and I treated them as equals, as friends. They definitely did not act as if they despised me, but I suppose you could never tell. Even so, I think it highly unlikely. 

It was probably because they thought I was suffering. That wasn't entirely true, though I had been told countless times that my health was rapidly deteriorating -- no, for the most part I was happy with my life. But I still felt that it was my time. I was curious what the afterlife was like, or if the afterlife was even real. Would I go to heaven or hell? Would I become a spirit, left to wander my house, or my grave, or whatever I deemed significant enough for me to haunt? Would I immediately be thrown into a new life, a newborn babe left to repeat the cycle of life all over again? And if so, would I be different in that new life? Would I eventually fade away, and the afterlife after the afterlife would begin, just one atom left as evidence that I ever really existed? 

When all this became overwhelming, I retreated to my little haven: the attic. With its low ceiling, dusty walls, cobwebby corners, and cramped feeling, it was the perfect place to question, write, pray, you name it. It was a triangular room, three sided, but not quite pointed on the third side... there was technically four sides, because there had to be room for a window, and a pointed window would be very strange indeed. There were many boxes about the room, all thickly coated in a layer of dust, and I was fairly certain the room was infested with mice. Some of the belongings had been gnawed or pooped on, but there was one item that, by a miracle, had been left untouched. 

Sometimes, when distracted from my praying or my writing or my thinking or whatever I was doing, I would wander over to the thing and trace my fingers over it lightly, each curve precious. It was a sedan chair, ancient by now, older than me. It was a rickety old thing. I should've got rid of it years ago, but I hadn't, and here it was, stuffed in a cramped attic that belongs to a man who longs for death. I remembered the first time I saw it, decades ago, when I was 13, a timid boy with pressure weighted on his shoulders. It was beautiful then; new-ish, beloved by its owner. My eyes grew misty thinking about its owner, her soft features everlasting in my mind. It seemed my time knowing her was ephemeral, a fleeting moment that I was launched through spontaneously, and she was gone as soon as she had arrived.