December 18, 2023

Walls

Annalee Birdcount hugs herself as she soldiers through the cold. It’s a week until Christmas and the to-do list is not receding.

Presents, cleaning, cards, airport pickups, apologies.

Stances.

There are holiday lights on nearly every house and their twinkle accompanied by the crunch of snow beneath Annalee’s boots puts the words of one of her old holiday favorites into her head.

Christmastime is here…

Happiness and cheer…

The piano music taps lightly through her mind and there is an inviting light on the horizon. The unmistakable glow of a liquor store’s taunt, God love it.

She walks some more and then there is a home with no Christmas lights but is still the brightest on the block. It’s the bottom floor of a two-flat and all the shades are open and the lights are on and Annalee can easily see all the walls are bare and, without struggle, it is seen there is furniture moved to the middle of the room with white sheets thrown over it. And then there is a young man, also in white, moving about the room.

It looks like a dream. Or a music video.

He is painting of course. He is employed as a house painter?

It’s his apartment/condo? His brother/sister/girlfriend’s?

Who paints their home a week before Christmas? Annalee wonders. Who foregoes holiday decorations for paintbrushes?

Is this a project that was supposed to happen months ago? Or one that had to be completed before the new tenant moves in January 1st?

“Someone died…” Annalee surprises herself with her own voice through the frost. “Someone died and now the home has been sold and suddenly there’s a new owner and this, this, all this, must be done now.”

The young man grabs a roller, Annalee sees. It’s well after dark and he keeps working, creating a world of white. Snow outside, white inside, and the familiar to anyone who has ever painted sight of a lamp with the shade removed, its light bulb shining naked as the white paint covers the smoke stains, the scratches, the tears of a home that has a ghost, but no time for memory.

Annalee watches him paint. She watches him until she gets too cold to imagine anything but a walk back home. --TK