The Ocean-Eyed Girl
Now Playing
Dusty Roses
Alela Diane
Digital Playback Anchor — Video Source: YouTube
When I think of her early years, it is always the damp scent of the valley at dawn. She would return to the house just as the sun began to warm the wooden porch, her long straight hair carrying the smell of crushed leaves and horse sweat. Inside, the television would already be murmuring its morning broadcast to an empty room, its pale light flickering across the floorboards. She had these large, blue eyes that absorbed the entire landscape but gave nothing back. Even as a young woman, she kept her hands tightly buried in her pockets, her knuckles white beneath the fabric, She was guarding some dark secret, gripping it in the dark like a key to a door she could never open.
Then came the restless years, marked by black slacks and the stiff collars of work shirts smelling faintly of stale grease and spilled coffee. The open valley was traded for the suffocating grid of downtown, the soft earth replaced by the sticky floors of late-night diners and crowded booths. I remember the severe slope of her shoulders when she ended a shift long after midnight, walking out into the glare of streetlampsat one in the morning. To dull the sharp edges of exhaustion after waiting on endless tables of ten, she headed downtown, letting the heavy fatigue drown in poured whiskey.
Eventually the city quietly returned her to the dirt roads she had tried to leave behind. She arrived with a small suitcase and a three-year-old child whose small hands tightly grasped the hem of her coat. The brightly colored plastic toys scattered across the front steps felt sharply out of place against the peeling, gray paint of the old house. Night after broken night, the irregular rhythm of her high heels stumbling down that gravel road would disrupt the quiet of the fields.
Now, the living room wall holds nothing but a tied bundle of dried, darkened roses. Every so often, a brittle petal quietly detaches itself and falls onto the wooden floor, joining the shadows of the room. The black birds continue to circle low over the valley just as they always did, their fast-moving shapes gliding across the tall grass without making a sound. The dirt road remains unchanged, though her footsteps no longer fall on it. The ocean-eyed girl has finally been laid to rest, buried deep in the earth like a forgotten key.
The Morning the Birds Stayed Quiet
The three-year-old child is now just tall enough to reach the kitchen sink, quietly pushing a small stool across the wooden floor to wash a single green apple. There are just the steady stream of tap water running over the fruit and the soft padding of bare feet moving through the empty house.
Sometimes, the child pauses and looks toward the living room wall where those withered stems still hang, tilting their head as if trying to trace the outline of a shadow that no longer falls across the floor. The damp valley wind slips through the slightly open window, gently rustling the child's hair, while the gravel road outside stretches out endlessly, quiet, still, and completely undisturbed.
The Next Town Over on a Tuesday
Joni Mitchell
"Little Green"
The quiet sound of tap water running over a green apple, washed by small hands that must now learn to navigate the empty house alone.
Courtney Marie Andrews
"Rookie Dreaming"
A fading memory of crushed leaves and horse sweat, long before the neon glare of downtown diners hardened her gaze.
The Be Good Tanyas
"The Littlest Birds"
Watching the black birds glide low over the tall grass, their silent flight echoing the restless stumbling down a midnight gravel road.
Aldous Harding
"The Barrel"
The strange shape of a dark secret kept hidden in a coat pocket, clutched tightly like a key to a door that will never open.
Comments
Post a Comment