Her Pink High-Heels
by Ashley Watson
I hear the “clickety-click” of her pink high heels drumming across the caramel wooden floor. I see the ruffled lace of her dress jumping around over her petite white legs. I feel the air squeeze out of me as her soft knees lay across my plastic floral pattern. Her eyes lower with sadness and her nose fills with sniffles.
The lightning strikes the ground with immense power; the rain droplets turn the beautiful garden into mud. I’m lucky it rains here almost everyday, otherwise I would have nothing to look at, considering she’s let nearly everything die. Blankly, she stares through the glass of the window, looking past her many flower pots filled to the brim beneath her green trim. Her no-good husband helped her paint this house – white with light green shutters. “Honey,” he used to announce proudly, “we will have the best house on the block.” The way he said exactly what she wanted to hear was pathetic, yet smart.
Joy used to overflow upon her face, now it is dead. With every meal she attempts to cook, the kitchen floods with “clinking” and “clanking” of scorching frying pans occupied with burnt food. Cooking was his specialty - chicken parmesan, steak with potatoes, four cheese ravioli, and chicken Alfredo.
By now, it’s normal to hear her cries from the bedroom at night. She looks so lonesome, dressed up for not a soul to see but the hummingbirds flying around their empty feeders. Hums of her favorite tunes used to envelope the room, now it is as if they left, right out the door with her dim-witted husband.
I dearly miss her so. How her knees would lean across my platform as she dusted around her precious knickknacks and watered her gorgeous plants. It was as if it her house was an indoor garden, filled with every flower you could name and she loved them all. Now, she has let them die; the thought of watering them has simply flown from her mind.
I’m sitting in this empty house, hearing nothing but the sound of rain outside. When I’m by myself, I find it hard not to think about you. I miss seeing your handsome eyes slightly squint when you remember something funny. I miss watching your long fingers drum a beat on the kitchen table. I miss sitting across from you in comfortable silence. I miss your voice and your eyes and your hair and your hands. You used to twirl my stringy brown hair in between your soft fingers and let me know how much you adored me. I miss how I never felt alone when you were around.
I don’t know how you escaped so quickly or even why. All I know is that I still think of you. I think of life as if you are not and have never been gone. I still wear my favorite ruffled dresses that you claimed to love and my giant variety of high heeled shoes that always resulted in your same admonish, “you’re going to break your beautiful little ankles, darling.”
We used to have parties, inviting the whole neighborhood down to our potlucks. Now, I don’t even step foot into the yard besides grabbing the mail every week. I miss your soft touch, the way your hands lightly glided from my high cheekbones down to the arch of my willowy back.
Many of my witty friends struggle to convince me you were kaput from the day we started. You used to remind me to water the plants, but I now have no one to water me, to allow me to grow. I have no one to polish my leaves and stand me up. Good bye, my love. |
