Creative Work

I cried and cried the day I left. Grandma was my world. She was so proud of my marks, of the uni I got into. I could not bear the look on her face, when I told her I could get a place in town. She had a sly smile as she jolted her rocking chair into life. I thought she wanted me to go so that she could boast, to become the center of attention. The heat of the summer seeped into my brain, white hot with anger. I wanted the perfect choice. The city and grandma – oil and water. My last memory, sunrise to an already bruised day.
Grandma sat on her rocking chair as always, enjoying the sun, a serene smile on her face as she watched me go. Each wrinkle a mark of her past, accumulating the stories of her life.

Lonely, long days dragged ahead of me. The pain of the huge city I could not understand. It took so many months to learn the rules. Fear, of failure racing time, leaving me behind. So much, so little knowledge. I needed a rocking chair and a gentle smile some days.

The sun, a blood orange, dropped below the horizon as I arrived. Darkness and silence descended over the house. This house had always seemed so big to me and the cousins. Really, it was small and pathetic. The lawn was scattered with autumn leaves, grandma’s immaculate lawn. No delicious smells of baking at all. Just the dampness and dust. My stomach churned.
The tread on the stair was loose. The rocking chair is silent. There I saw her. Ghostly pale, hands outstretched, stars flung skywards. There would never be a homecoming for me again.

Sunrise, the oceans filled the sky and the trees hung with fishes, as the sun danced between them and glittered across the road ahead. And I drove Eastward, back into a world grandma never knew.

These memories are just purple shadows. Purple shadows that creep away as a new day begins. My own memories stretched out before me. I think about my short grandma, her life seemed so short as well. Life, my life, ‘tinker, tailor, sailor maker….”. I drive onwards, even further from grandma. My tears drop slowly, sadly crystal beads.

Savagely I think of the rocking chair. Grandma’s comfort or prison? The horizon widens as I near the city. My city, my life. Roads converge and stretch before me.