A fiberglass cane lay on the floor next to an old Plat book, a 2013 road atlas, and a heavy old Dyson... full of fluff. Toothpicks sat in an ashtray near the old Victrola, the cabinet beneath with 78s from the 20's and 30's, their musty record covers deteriorating.
He'd forgotten to take the old Mason jar...the one he used as a drinking glass... back into the kitchen. He remembered how "she" would throw a fit every time he forgot to "put it away," as if this single episode would stop the clocks from running.
But she was no longer here...while her scent fragranced the air for a few weeks...her clothes grew stale, and he found the longing to touch them dying from within.
He still heard her in his mind, somewhere close to his ears...but her voice was fading.
Her clothes lay piled like an old forgotten reminder on their bed upstairs... in the bedroom he passed by every morning, content to leave the contents as they were. They were history. A tangible reminder. Alone.
The Grandfather clock struck 12. A silence filled his ears. A soft silence...
And as the dawn crept in through the cracks in the curtains, the figure stiffened, and the electric meter turned and turned, oblivious to the world of flesh and bone.
The school bus, like clockwork, passed by at 8:12, followed by the 18 year old girl, who lived next door, and drove her little white car the two blocks to the parking lot every day...like a child reciting a rosary, she lived life without thinking.
In the alley behind, the garbage truck stopped to empty the big blue plastic bin.
Next door, the neighbor opened the back door, tapping down the steps like a dancer, his heart racing abnormally fast, coffee and chocolate blessing his veins.
Across the street, the newlyweds lingered on the front porch where the new Daddy-to-be said goodbyes two or three times and tried to forget how long he'd be away before climbing into his bright red truck.
The UPS truck, an exquisite brown, stopped in the street, and the driver removed an item from the back end. He shoved it onto the old man's front porch, then left.
As the kids came home from school, the white car returned to the curb out front. Later, the slightly pregnant Mommy met her new husband on their front porch. And the high-strung neighbor, running low on caffeine, slowly climbed his own back steps and hid in his own little house.
But in the house next door, where the lights burned bright, the freezer thawed, and the laptop did an update, a whitened old man, his mouth open like a flounder, left his birthday suit in the lazy boy chair and headed for another history...
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