Burnt Ovens

#3

It was ten years ago. Did I tell you that already? Ten years ago, I was mowing the lawn, the brusque roaring of cold blades against tender green shoots filling my ears, my soul. A care-free childhood fantasy of mine: to "grow up" and mow the lawn every Saturday morning as my wife flowered her prize-winning geraniums beside me and my children played on the $500 swing set in the beautiful Eden that was our backyard. This was a Thursday afternoon. And someone--someone else--who happened to claim this Eden for his backyard was paying me for pushing the black grass-hungry monster back and forth across the lawn. And Cecilia did not want children. My lawnmower buzzed in my ears every moment of my life with her. I told myself I deserved better. A college degree and I mowed for a living. It's all foggy now. I can't remember why...

posted by Sofie @ 8:21 PM Comments: 0

#2

Today I will take out the candle I hid beneath my mattress ten years past. I will hold a flame to its charred-black wick and watch the fire take hold and breathe. Every year the wick burns for five minutes, no more, from 2:39 AM until 2:46 AM on the 17th of October. Every year, for the past ten years, without fail. I began borrowing my cellmate's lighter four years ago, and he has watched it with me every year since.

Cecilia. Cecilia. Her pale, beautiful face still haunts me in every waking hour and every restless sleepless minute. A beauty that petrified more than it awed, and a coolness in the eyes that froze even the ice that danced in her glass. That's how I see her still. Lounging gracefully on our purple sofa, her long arms and legs dangling over it, her feline eyes darting between her never-empty glass of iced tea, the TV screen as scenes of death flicked across, and my face because I was watching her. I was fascinated by those eyes, eyes that held your very soul in a merciless, iron grip. But she avoided my eyes. I remember when I realized this, that she never truly looked at me, I realized, too, that I hated her. With all my being, as pitiful as it was, I hated her.

posted by Sofie @ 11:31 PM Comments: 0