Lavender Mist

A Family Tragedy

Maggie wasn't certain about for how long she was motionlessly lying, curled up in the blue chair, and if she stayed awake for the entire time, or if she drifted into sleep once or maybe even several times. However, she doubted that she had fallen asleep, since she wobbled from exhaustion when she stood up, like a marionette hanging on tangled strings. She observed the auditorium from the hight, with her hair in the way, poking her face, yet she had a sense as if she was too weak to move it and hook it behind her ear.

The theatre had never looked so abandoned and silent. Until then, she didn't find it abandoned at all, since her friend lived in it, but, at that point, it was as if all life left from the walls and the rooms of the artistic building. And that art also suddenly started looking dead and pointless. Whom was it meant for? Who could observe it and love it? It was decaying silently and unnoticeably, it was dying in loneliness, without any eyes to see its calamity. It couldn't even be called art anymore, since it no longer had its youthful freshness, which was necessary for it to awaken feelings. Maggie felt odd, because she, for the first time, didn't love the theatre.

Catiously, as if she was blind, she guided herself to the door of the lodge and passed through the red hallway at a slow pace, constantly keeping her arms tied around her waist. Once bright paint now looked more like brown, although it still had some signs of light, warm colour, which reminded of the last sunrays before the final stage of dusk.

Finally, she exited through the back door, briefly feeling joyful memories, from when she was excited to come and visit Pablo, but those thoughts quickly went quiet and buried back into their deep shelter. It was already dark outside. The stars were only vaguely glimpsing through some delicate clouds. If she had a long stick, as the girl imagined, she would had been able to make the sky clear just with a single poke. She wondered if she was left alone in the world, since there weren't any people walking through the park, as there would normally be, during the evening. The walkers, shaded by their hoods, would pull up and snort in the foggy air, as they would wait for their dogs on the stretchy leashes to sniff a hidden tree strump, covered with moss, that they would find. Some child would giggle in a mother's lap, on a wooden swing, hung high on a branch, so not even legs of an adult person were able to touch the ground. In that moment, however, the park was in a slumber. When she got to the street, Maggie looked for the glowing windows on the houses. From some, a light was breaking out and only closed, lacy curtains could be seen, but most of them were wrapped in blackness.

In Maggie's house, only one window was lit and the door was partially open. The girl shyly sneaked inside, entering through a small space, barely wide enough to let her pass. She closed the door behind her and turned the key in the keyhole, trying to make as least sound as she could. A weak voice was coming from one of the rooms, shaking and skipping in bursts of sobs.

Maggie quietly, as if she was floating, drifted from one room to another, looking for the one that was the source of the sound of crying. She even climbed into her own room, although it was dark and silent. When she walked back downstairs, she stopped in the dining room, the only part of the house where the light was on. Right when she stood at the door of the room, she froze in confusion. Her mother was sitting with her back turned to her, bent over the dining table, with only a single mug of tea in front of her. Maggie secretly approached her. The mother's tears were rolling down her burning red cheeks and dripping into the tea, from which dense steam was spreading and crashing into her face. Her hands with bulging, dark veins covered her forehead, lined with wrinkles and redness. It was obvious that she didn't even notice when Maggie entered, since she was still hunched over the mug and her eyes were firmly shut.

"Mom, I'm here," the girl quietly announced, thinking that the mother was crying because she didn't come home in time. However, the sad woman simply glipsed at her with her bloody eyes and continued twitching in sobs.