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October 2019 - Issue No. 9

Einaudi

Luann Lewis

An elderly woman shuffled up the sidewalk and took a seat on the bench across the way from me. I watched her slow steps and noticed her feet stuck in matted slippers and her swollen discolored ankles. Breathing a sigh of relief, I felt grateful for my mobility, for my youth and comfort. The woman carried with her a small boom box. She sat it on the bench by her side and, with much huffing and puffing, she settled herself. Big sweater sleeves flopping, she put one scrawny elbow on the arm of the bench then used her gnarled hands to pull headphones over her dull gray head.

I could hear snatches of the melody drifting from under the tattered pads on her ears… some beautiful piano… was that a symphony? I couldn’t quite tell.

As she listened, her face relaxed. She tilted her head back in the sun and her skin seemed to smooth. Her shoulders loosened and her back straightened as tight muscles relaxed and gained strength from the sound. Her lips parted and seemed to grow fuller as I watched. Blushing and bursting with color, this youth traveled up into her cheeks, her nose, her eyes and her forehead until it appeared that her complexion was that of a teenager, radiant and flawless. Formerly drab and white, her hair had somehow become flowing pale locks, thick and glowing in the sun.

Then her blue eyes opened wide and she...

A River of Words

Penny Devlin

Go to work every day. Do your job. Do it well. Always learning, getting better every day. Soaking in the letters that become words, that lead to success.

Meetings, instructions, to-do lists, directions — the words start to drown like a river of brown muddy water rushing through a gulley. Flash floods brought into the valleys by heavy spring rains. A flash flood of words. Gasping for air, bobbing along on the massive tumble of letters.

It starts as a trickle. Dad has cancer. Terminal. Plans, letters, research. More words. More letters. Finances, doctors, funerals. Burial, estate, inheritance. Even more words.

A period of peace. The flood recedes to a trickle. Breathe. Fresh and precious air. Take a vacation. No worries. All is well.

The words start rolling in again. Mom’s sick. Hospitals. Questions. Doctors. More words. Big words. Cholangiocarcinoma. More directions. More doctors. Again? The words blur. The water muddies. It rises quickly.

Doctors, emergency rooms, hospital beds. Medications. Lots of medications. Lots and lots of words. Pamphlets. Instructions. Directions. Special diets. Chemotherapy.

No more chemo.

Hospice. Rolling beds. Catheters. Doing things you never thought you’d have the strength to do — but you do them anyway. Big words. Lots of letters.

Keep swimming. Head above water. Gasp for air.

Funeral plans. Burial. One step forward, two steps back.

The words and letters are all jumbled. They make no sense. Can’t breathe. Gasping for breath. The words are all gone now. Just a blur. A pile of...