In the lane, slush sits heavy on the sides of the road, half-hearted snow still lingering in the centre of the piles. Wooden gates with paint long worn away stand as melancholy sentries. The sky is drained of colour, a grey almost clear, hints of hopeful blue still smothered by the clouds. Just beside the garage, a tiny wooden horse sits. It is smiling, loyal, waiting only the moment when its rider will return. Black main and pastel-buttercup skin, it is proud of its cherry red saddle, proud too of the cherry wheels with which it wins races, beats the other cowboys and rides in first, wind teasing its painted locks, giggles of delight the prize for which it competes.
Inside the fence, shards of pottery like landmines seed the tall grass. There is not a dandelion in sight, no weeds to mar the cultivated chaos. The tulips lie trampled, bright petals motes of splattered paint on the green and brown canvas. A boot print sits heavy in a pile of mud, and the birdbath lies on its side. One lone chickadee tries to bathe in the little puddle, remembering the bygone days when it lived in a paradise, and when its mother would have been so proud.
Through the kitchen, where thick black smoke that taste of apple pie stains oak cabinets dark, and a gallery of hand-painted smiling faces litters the ground by the refrigerator, displaced in favour of hand-prints right on the cool white surface: black and grey, brown and red, sliding closer to the ground.
Up the stairs, snapshots of life all askew: a girl in a blue dress reaches up to catch a bubble, laughing; two men, arm in arm, stare up from a pile of broken glass; a family sits at their Christmas tree, one half-in-frame as he fails to get there in time. Fails to arrive in time.
In the hallway now, red drops on the plush white carpet. The light swings and flickers, creating dancing shadows out of that marble sculpture, bought with love in Paris and returned home with only one minor ding, gotten when it arrived, safely, and fell out of the taxi’s trunk; and the table, there, where lost keys are found and a vase once stood, until she knocked it down with a game of tag.
In the bedroom someone breathes. She breathes quietly. She has been told it is a game but she knows it isn’t; knows more than they give her credit for, sees more than they think she does. The world slips in through her clear grey eyes, and even though she lets only pieces out, she holds the rest close to her heart. The computer sits on its side, wires and guts exposed to the world; a long slash travels through the comforter, spilling feathers that dance in the breeze from the window.
Down the hall, now, to the big double doors where she’s told not to go without knocking. They’re slightly ajar now, not as they should be, closed up tight and safe. White doors with gold handles and the doors are slightly open, and the room is holding its breath, waiting for someone to walk inside, waiting to scream, waiting to say… find me.
Photo by Stuart Thursby. Thursby is an award-winning Toronto art director and photographer.