Sometimes she'd just smile as I walked past, she'd
say hello with her eyes and I'd continue on. She didn't much care for the
small talk with which the rest of the town seemed so enamoured. Her
silver hair didn't even fall past her shoulders anymore, she'd not cut it but time has a way of wearing things thin,
I suppose. The most intriguing part of her demeanour was most certainly the way she'd never quite
express an entire feeling, it always seemed to fall short before it had even the chance to slip into the world. I was quite sure that if she'd been able to
articulate some of her potent little thoughts, she'd have told us all the
secrets floating around in our universe (though, it was mostly centred around
this town, that is, our universe, and probably held not much of interest any way).
My father knew, as did I, that if you were to approach her
at sunset she'd welcome you to have a seat on the unstable, death trap of a porch swing next to her ancient rocker in much the same shape. I'd always nestle into the corner and curl my knees up to my chest,
trusting myself to the aging wood, rusty chains, and she'd tell me a story. The stories, they never made much
sense, and I could never quite understand what she was saying aside from the odd little quip about a
blue sky falling on unsuspecting, busy little humans. I didn't want to understand, really, in fact the only reason I even found my way here on such evening's was to escape any sort of
organized thought. I'm quite sure she knew this, at least to a point, but it didn't seem to bother her and she'd ramble for hours about the little nothing's created solely for
her eyes by some sort of
invisible force that kept her insanity sane.
Until a month before, I'd not ventured as far as the little swing I grew to
love so dearly in such a short time. I had been little more than
fearful,
hesitant. If it had not been for the urging of my father, who'd spent many an hour perched upon
failing wood, swaying back and forth as she'd blurt out, but in the most soothing of ways, every thought,
partial thought, that traversed her mind far enough to make it to her lips. He'd told me there was no place in the world so peaceful, so
calm and perfect than that little porch swing, and her.. the soft
wisps of thinning hair that fell on either side of her pale face, and the slight, but beautiful
rasp of an old, weary voice. The weariness, though, it was little more than fallacy, because that woman had more
adoration for life itself than anyone I'd ever met. I could hear it in her
incomplete thoughts, in fact, I knew that's why they were just that. She had been allowed to see that which most will never be able to. She could
hear the music that floats on a gentle wind and the
nearly silent, rustling voice of every tiny leaf, a summer breeze, a cello to her, sweet.. with
a soft aching tone.