The Cliche of Life
© Photograph by Anastasiya Dobrovolskaya
The prismatic colours in the oil spills on the garage floor jazzed up the drab surroundings. The home mechanic muttered an expletive under his breath as something nicked his finger, and quickly sucked at the red beading. The gleaming bonnet closed with a satisfying click; the finale after two years of work on the car that he had bought at auction the day their daughter left for unknown climes. He and his wife hoped that she could make it down for her eighteenth birthday party that they had put together.
A crystal laugh delights, engenders some highlights
in eyes that oft endear, outshine a chandelier.
He brought the bottles of coke over to where she was seated on the wooden bench under the gazebo at the bottom of her parents’ garden. The glass was covered in condensation, except where his sweaty palm had made contact with it. She knew in her heart of hearts that he was about to pop the Big Question.
He took a hefty gulp of his soda and started to cough, covering his mouth with the same fist that clutched the coke bottle. She pretended not to notice and instead, fussed with the hem of her summer dress. He looked sheepishly at her and took a deep breath before coming out with it: ‘Would you mind if I dated your sister … instead of you?’
‘Of course not,’ she lied.
She could see the eager face of her sister through the rose arbour. Walking over to her took the longest time.
Life’s tides will ebb, and flow as inner tension grows,
but balm of ocean’s song, it rights so many wrongs.
She stood on the platform of her youth. The weeds were growing between the railway sleepers where the tracks have rusted in situ. The trains will never run again.
The spontaneous laughter of children splashing in water out of sight could be heard above the incessant chirp of cicadas in the single eucalyptus tree that grew on the west side of the building, leaning protectively over the rusty corrugated iron roof. The shadow it cast veiled the only window in that wall, cloaking any eyes that might possibly be watching. Despite the heat, she shivered as though someone had walked over her grave as she imagined that she could hear her late mother calling her to the evening meal through that open window.
Memories are ample; meanwhile lessons rankle:
dust motes dance like clichés, ubiquitous risqué.
Comments