Images In the Dark
My father died when I was seven.
Like a girl in a museum I'm drawn to his pictures - those inadequate reproductions hypnotize me
What can pictures give? Coal-blue eyes, a knowing look. They exist, for me, like Cassandra of Troy, full of endless secrets that can never be told.
A snowy, ice slickened, twilight-blue rush hour parade - hundreds of grimy cars rushing, rushing ... somewhere.
Why do the details I can't remember haunt me so?
A flash of light, the tearing of metal like the screaming of dogs in a reeling, devouring dance of energy.
The nuclear family detonating with death inches away.
Everyone was asking, "What do you remember?"
"I don't know," 7 year old me said.
Sometimes, as I fall asleep, memories of him - which I hold dear - come to me like the ghosts of departed friends. Image after image in the embracing dark.
Why is it the further away you get, the more I need you?
Those images and that voice are strangely silent in the morning as I'm, once again, awakened to a world I'd rather reassemble.
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