Free Entry, Week 8

                                                                    A Trip to Grandma's

She has mini-steps leading to the front door, granny. Little brick steps for her steps. Pulling the screen door that creaks white with old age, the hydraulic door closer shushes me as I enter, like a finger wagging a cautionary tale over my head. The door clasps shut, tight, with a click. It smells like pantry boxes of expired mac n' cheese, old clothes and plastic medicine bottles. The carpet in the living room is an old sea-foam green and white doilies abound. The couch has a Victorian pattern of overly-red roses and I remember how big the couch used to be when I was little. Now the roses seem bigger than the memories. Tchotchkes crowd the room, keeping granny company. Fake finches and painted styrofoam eggs nest the house as I search for their mother. On my way down the hall I pass "The Cat Room," appropriately titled as such by granny herself. Pictures of cats are everywhere; blanketing everything from the dresser to the bedding. She loves these animals dearly, but doesn't keep any of her own. Probably because she is getting too old. She had trouble stepping off her big-little steps last month and now she has to use a walker and go to physical therapy. Her spine is compressed and her medications numerous, but she still manages to go to work at the local library - the one with the dressed up ceramic pig in a flowery white hat that greets you at the door. Dear sweet granny, the life-long librarian. Fat and short, like a weeble-wobble. You know, those plastic toys that are weighted and rounded at the bottom? You can push them with your finger, but they don't fall down. They almost topple but then spring back to life in an instant of motivation, or instinct. I'm not sure which. Maybe both. As I enter her room, I see a lifetime of accumulation. Pictures of my mom when she was young. Pictures of my aunt and her first husband...and my aunt and her second husband. She's shoving cake into his mouth. Everything is brass. The bed frame, the picture frames, the clock on the wall. Cheap brass, sea-foam green carpet and a boxy television - so old it still has knobs on it. I look to the bed and see a book flipped carefully over, holding an important place open for granny to return to. It has a picture of a young lady on the front, all stuffy-dress and made of tea. She sits on a sofa that bears a rosy resemblance to the one in the living room. Out of boredom I grab the book, curious to see what sweet old ladies read. "...he takes her from behind, his member entering her forcefully as she bites down on his wrist." Eyes twitching, I place the book down exactly as I found it and escape back to the fake finches, who, with their beady black eyes will bear into my soul and know that I know.

I don't think I'll sit on that couch ever again.