She slumped into a chair at the
drop-leaf table and gazed around the kitchen, at the vintage Magic Chef stove she’d begged
Thomas for, a replacement to the avocado double-ovens his grandparents had
installed in the 1970’s. She’d loved how
the hulking appliance conjured up images of aprons and long simmered stews, how its warming drawers heated the room in the
winter; how it fit so well it was almost as if the room had been
built around it.
She gazed at the soapstone sink,
the pot from the tomato soup she’d eaten.
Yesterday? The day before? — took
in the corner cupboard, the drifting cobwebs floating above the slate floor. Around
her, the house ticked and sighed and shifted, the home she’d tended
to for years, surrounding her like an empty casing, a walnut shell, its hollows and paper membranes sculpting a memory of all that had once been there, all
that once was.
11 comments:
Congratulations on seven hundred posts.
That is really sad and lonely, especially for so few words.
That's a lovely recreation of the past! congrats on so many posts! :-)
So very sad. Your piece not your accomplishment. Congratulations on your number of posts.
Oh, so poignant and sad yet beautiful too.
Here's a toast to 700!
Love your description of the ticking house. Love that stove!!
Nice snippet; I feel a lot of longing for the past in that brief passage.
Very cool stove!
What an interesting contrast of the homey, vintage stove she'd wanted and acquired and loved and the feeling of neglect and loneliness as she looks at it now. I wonder what changed for her.
Love the stove. A very evocative passage. I would love to read more.
With my daughter leaving for four months overseas shortly and my boys all out on their own, you really hit my sad button with this one.
This is really lovely, Liza. Strong imagery put me right in the setting and feeling her loss.
My grandmother had a stove just like that in her kitchen. It was green.
Great piece.
700? Really? Well, just wow.
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