After drafting it with Frootloops on my desk, I have placed these notes on this sheet music, composing a melody only for you. I carefully arranged them so that you will easily catch the tune and somehow tickle your taste in music.
Will you finally hum along with my affections?
The balding Mr. Harris snored on his rocking chair.
His spectacles, round and thick, rested on what’s left of his hair sprinkled with chalk dust. Blind as faith, he had grown highly dependent on them (he hung them on his neck on most days so as not to misplace them). His mustache was still, his forehead creased in distress and his fake teeth were in danger of falling.
A tall glass vase stood at Mr. Harris’ side desk. Withered petals were scattered at its foot while the water inside it began to breed mosquitoes. Flies swarmed his living room and kissed the portrait of his younger self - bold and proud in his Marines uniform.
At 81, Mr. Harris couldn’t reach for the remote control without bursting a sweat. He sat on his rocking chair, shackled with old age, with his pants soaked in his urine and caked with his own feces.
Mr. Harris lived alone. More alone than anyone.
Everyone knew, of course. But nobody seemed to notice that the balding Mr. Harris’ snore was stealthily hushing, that flies were already kissing his exhausted face.
White paint masked the deep scars of grudges and disappointments she had nursed for so long. Behind her were tall, glass windows where the sun’s rays that touched the young girl’s denim jumpers, the newspaper-covered floors and a steel ladder passed through. The afternoon was particularly humid and the room was a perfect canvas.
Angela stared at the bare wall and the wall stared back, like a reflection.
“Rephrase the world,” she muttered.
She stood and splashed her new-found haven with a fresh bucket of paint, freeing infinite possibilities that had once been incubated in hope but chained by fear.
The majority believed that in the entire human anatomy, it was the eyes that revealed man’s spirit. It’s true to some extent, but my outlet to another’s life would be the hands.
Hands tell all sorts of stories: the man with calloused, sandpaper hands worked overtime, the girl with freshly polished nails was\s set on her first date, the man with protruding veins on his wrinkled hands had tightly held her wife's on her deathbed.
Hers were my favorite. Her hands were luke-warm tea and biscuits on Sunday mornings. Hers meant safety and unconditional love.
My mother’s hands were magic.
