Apartment 310
I
She died three days ago, the lady in
the apartment at the end of the corridor.
She was eighty-three. The medics rolled
her out in a shiny black body bag,
a not uncommon sight in this housing
complex for the elderly.
They found her on the kitchen floor,
to one side of a chair. She didn’t even
have time to finish her cup of tea.
A cerebral hemorrhage, the obit read.
Instant death, probably, and never felt
the tea cup slipping from her fingers,
never felt herself falling, never felt
her head hitting the floor or the sound
of her tea cup or glasses breaking into pieces.
II
Never idle, she had the work ethic
of an ant, waitressing at three different
restaurants in town, driving her old car
with its noisy muffler every day to work.
Feisty, loud, opinionated, her voice
was raspy, grating on the ear.
A nonstop complainer, she spoke her mind
on subjects most women her age
would never, while we kept our distance.
Her most outstanding nonverbal feature
was her hair, always made up, always piled
on her head like dollopes of cumulus clouds
with potential for thunder and lightning.
III
Now she was dead, a corpse, a body in decay.
No more would she serve customers or wipe tables.
No more would the corridors carry her loud voice.
There is nothing more useless than death –
except, perhaps, to give light to an empty
space or an apartment to another occupant.
A resident made a rather odd comment
in saying that, though she had died three days
ago, she could not have been dead for that
length of time, for death is a condition
without time, eternity is instantaneous,
he said dryly – if she had had even half
a second to remember.
Copyright © Maurice Rigoler | Year Posted 2025
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