Mind Shelf
Gilda owned many porcelain-cracked
teacups, which she would set on the highest of shelves. Seventy years had gone
by without much use of any of her fine china. Gilda normally kept her fine
plates and tea sets in a massive shelved armoire to display her treasure. These
treasures were never touched, only brought out for special occasion. But even
the finest of stone ages every year, whether used for tea every Sunday, or a
shot of whiskey every night.
Gilda’s bones and mass were becoming
paper and ink. Novels line the armoire, filling more space than the china. Over
the decades she had fallen in love, experienced tragedy, and even felt a sort
of commonplace. Her life is a novel akin to a celebrity memoir; she had seen it
all. But now her skin was becoming so thin that the only writing she saw were
her darkening and raising veins.
Gilda’s eyes were turning to filmed
white marbles. Kept in a jar, to preserve her once blue and gleaming gems. She
looks at her photo album to find remnants of what she once was, but she can no
longer see the youth in her eyes let alone anything ten feet in front of her.
The marbles will do.
Gilda’s husband, Mark, is a Mercury
Comet from the 60’s; a classic car but with an vintage engine. The ride used to
be sweet, luxurious, but most of all young. Now the Comet does not know how to
find his way home, and wears diapers. He cannot remember where Gilda’s shelves
are.
Gilda’s mind is a spinning top, one
of the few treasures she kept from her childhood. On the lowest shelf it is
placed, at rest. She used to spin the top and watch it slow and stop. For many
years, she prided herself in being sharp, quick on her feet, a sly fox. But the
top must stop its rotation, and that’s when Gilda’s memory started to fade.
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