I guess I was no older than six at the time and the first apples of autumn had just fallen to the soft and damp ground. Outside the rain was hanging in the air, like it was waiting for something to give it permission to fall and enter the soil below. I stood there, under the apple tree, and looked at one of the apples, watching how a drop of water slowly ran along the crimson red surface, parting the crystal of last night’s frost on its way. Down my cheeks tears were flowing, only to turn to ice at my chin. It was cold outside, but I didn´t notice, all I noticed was the cold fire burning inside me, summoned by this morning passed events.
My bare feet had gently crossed the dark carpet, a carpet that used to be soft as new snow but now shattered glass filled its soft fluff, making it hard like hate. I was breathing soundlessly, while my eyes watchfully glanced over the now dead silent room. I wasn´t quite sure what had passed, only that I´d woken when I heard loud and angry voices crossing the fibers of the thin door from the hallway outside my room. Loud voices mixed with the sound of glass being shattered when meeting hard walls and the softer sound of shards raining down into the wall-to-wall carpet.
Hard walls and hard words.
After a few terrifying minutes filled with the very sounds of horror, the white door opened and my mother entered. Without a sound she lay beside me and kissed my forehead. I could clearly see her tears glittering in the faint light from the street light and not even the cover of darkness could conceal the redness on her cheek. I knew that the only thing we could do now was to lay there and wait. Wait and hope that the worst part had passed and the door would not open once again, letting another person in. Silently we lay there, holding each other, listening to our breaths bouncing between the walls, bouncing through the silence. Then the darkness within grew thicker, spreading in the room around our shivering bodies. Many minutes passed while laying there, trying to comfort each other with our warmth. To the sound of my mother’s breath I finally managed to fall asleep, only to wake again shortly after. My mother’s breath now was calmer and her teary eyes shut. I stayed really quite beside her sleeping figure, hearing our hearts unite in a common rhythm, a rhythm that held the promise of love and tenderness, that held the dream of a safe life. I held on to that moment, held it in my thoughts like a newborn butterfly, when I suddenly hear my father´s car leaving the driveway. Gently I left the safe arms of my mother and entered the hallway, closing the door behind me. I crossed the carpet, carefully so that I would not step on the glass covering it, and I reached the stairs. Without a sound I left the house and walked barefoot out into the garden.
The morning was so beautiful with the morning dew still lingering in the air and the red autumn apples that just had fallen to the soft ground seemed to be filled with such a will to live, to hang on to this world yet some time. I looked at them with my teary child eyes and I prayed to God that I too could be an apple on the big tree of life and that I could be granted the time to ripe. To ripe in piece, safe under the crown of the tree, without being torn and destroyed by big, black birds before my time to fall has come.
Inga kommentarer:
Skicka en kommentar