Saturday's Storyteller: "Suddenly, it stopped."
by Belinda Roddie
Suddenly, it stopped. The crying. The screaming. The lamentations. It simply cut off, like pulling the plug on an old television set. Like flicking a light switch. Like blowing out a diminishing candle. Not a sound. Not even a whine. No complaint.
I checked the other room to see why she had stopped keening. She sat in her old, wicker chair, looking out the window, her face stony and expressionless. Her wrinkled hands creased and uncreased the hem of her long black dress, then recreased it, as if the lines meant something. A new lifeline in the palm of one's hand? That didn't matter. None of it did at this point.
I had heard my grandmother loudly grieving for her newly dead husband for the past six hours straight. Now, the silence felt strange, even disruptive, more so than any noise. How confounding that was. To finally have quiet, only to be sucked into a vacuum rather than retreating to sanctuary. Perhaps, after all, there was no sanctuary to be found.
I stayed in the doorway of my grandmother's room, watching her. Outside, the man in the moon was particularly visible. When I was a child, my favoritie story that my grandfather always told me was that the man liked to dance on the moon. We could never hear the music he cavorted to, but it was grand music, in summation. Now, it seemed that even the mad man in the moon was done with his choreography for now. And maybe, according to my grandmother, he was watching her. Respecting her.
I cleared my throat.
"Nana?"
My grandmother said nothing. Her breathing was harsh and labored, as if she had just sprinted from one end of the house to the other.
"Nana, I'm going to make some tea. Do you want any?"
Still no answer.
I was left in the disturbing silence.
This week's prompt was provided by a lyric from Genesis's track, "Squonk," which can be found on their A Trick of the Tail album.
Suddenly, it stopped. The crying. The screaming. The lamentations. It simply cut off, like pulling the plug on an old television set. Like flicking a light switch. Like blowing out a diminishing candle. Not a sound. Not even a whine. No complaint.
I checked the other room to see why she had stopped keening. She sat in her old, wicker chair, looking out the window, her face stony and expressionless. Her wrinkled hands creased and uncreased the hem of her long black dress, then recreased it, as if the lines meant something. A new lifeline in the palm of one's hand? That didn't matter. None of it did at this point.
I had heard my grandmother loudly grieving for her newly dead husband for the past six hours straight. Now, the silence felt strange, even disruptive, more so than any noise. How confounding that was. To finally have quiet, only to be sucked into a vacuum rather than retreating to sanctuary. Perhaps, after all, there was no sanctuary to be found.
I stayed in the doorway of my grandmother's room, watching her. Outside, the man in the moon was particularly visible. When I was a child, my favoritie story that my grandfather always told me was that the man liked to dance on the moon. We could never hear the music he cavorted to, but it was grand music, in summation. Now, it seemed that even the mad man in the moon was done with his choreography for now. And maybe, according to my grandmother, he was watching her. Respecting her.
I cleared my throat.
"Nana?"
My grandmother said nothing. Her breathing was harsh and labored, as if she had just sprinted from one end of the house to the other.
"Nana, I'm going to make some tea. Do you want any?"
Still no answer.
I was left in the disturbing silence.
This week's prompt was provided by a lyric from Genesis's track, "Squonk," which can be found on their A Trick of the Tail album.
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