Ginkgo biloba stands in the corner, very tall yet wilting. She appears of Chinese origin and her creamy white hair is tied tightly back in circular bulbous buns. She has pale fragile veins visible on her face and between the bunches of hair on her head. When I come closer she extends her hands to me and they fan out from her slight pallid wrists like the lobes of a brain. I try to speak to her but her manner is distant and slow as though she is living lost within a fog.
“Excuse me please”, I say carefully with reserve, but she has looked away from me again and doesn’t seem to know I am there. After some time she looks back confused.
“Who’s there? What is it that you want?” she mumbles looking around, her eyes narrow and squinty, her brow furrowing in concentration. Her bloodless lips tremble when she speaks.
“I wish to know you”, I say, “what is your name?”
“I am…I am…” she appears unsure. “I knew before but now…now I can no longer remember”. She turns away and as she walks I can she that there is pain within her legs because she winces and limps. Suddenly she stumbles to the ground her hand branched over her eyes.
“It whirls, it whirls”, she repeats to herself, “the ringing of bells and the tilting of ground”. She lies for a while on the earth, her body so white it’s like clouded milk. She speaks again:
“So cold so cold: my legs and my feet. They are lacking a warmth, a fire I once had. Soon they will go and leave me alone. No legs, no feet, no warmth, just fog”.
I go to her to help her to stand up but she pushes me away startled.
“Who are you?” she demands anxiously, “and why are you here??”
“We just spoke”, I explain, trying to calm her.
“But I don’t know you”, she whispers frightened “I don’t know you”.
I leave her to her thoughts and move away. In the distance I turn again and there she is as I saw her before, shrouded in white.
No comments:
Post a Comment