I sit alone. The pears ripe on the tree. No one comes to pick them. They dangle like untouched, love-drained fingers. Books line my walls, papery friends that whisper occasional greetings, stream my mind back to younger days. Days when I studied literature, worked alongside professors, published my writings. These are gold-coined memories, flashing me awake with gilded edges, gleaming in sunlight.
Every month, I attend a writing group, but it is more to be close to others than to write; the pen now wobbly, an obstacle, in my age-spotted, arthritic hands. My brainwaves are slower, less punchy, more typewriter-slow than Mac-whizz quick. Nevertheless, it is an outing, a space other than here.
Family make short, occasional visits: all children and grandchildren fully grown, lost in their own professions, and constructed worlds. Too busy to pick the pears.
Sometimes I speak to them, pretend they are children. At dusk I whisper, ask them to stay longer, not to drop and leave me. Their toughened skins make them poor listeners; my soft words rebound, fall silently on overgrown grass. Grass I can no longer mow, my hands too weak to manoeuvre the buzzing, cumbersome lawnmower—it was always George’s job.
George.
I miss him.
His portraits are portals, positioned around the living room; each wall bears his much-loved face: spectacled, subtly smiling, slightly stubbled; a loving husband, dutiful father, adoring grandfather, retired doctor; a man that saw more than he said. Wise. Judicious. A moral compass. My anchor.
Now he is gone, and the rooms stretch longer; the windows shrink to port holes; my reflection mocks me in hallway mirrors. I shrink from my own jagged sneers.
Shuffling in overused slippers, I make my way to treasured bookcases, stroke their smooth spines like newborns. Here, I feel rooted, near to the garden pears too. They wink at me from branches, silent but playful companions. Overcome by tides of happiness, held by meaning, encased with bookish friends and fruitful orbs, I swoon. Seen. Held. Of note. It is all too much at once.
Dizziness greets me. High blood pressure. Dehydrated veins. My heart palpitates, too fast, capsizing the room. I am a lost sailor in a single boat; no one notes my struggles as the waves thunder, toppling my strength, suffocating breathing holes. I undo my top button, gasp for air, slowly sink into crashing waves, start to drown. The room is an unforgiving ocean. George’s broken photo frame rides the cusp of an aggressive wave; his smile still tender.
A black hole takes me.
*
Chant-like whispers save me. Bring me to.
The pears.
“Fight,” they demand. “It is not time yet, Ida,” they command, united in companionable, sage-kissed heaven, high on branches. Their tiny lips now free of duct tape. I discern a slight smugness on their part, protected in jackets of sea-foam green patina. A strike of jealousy courses through me, discerning that they would float, bob as buoys on the surface, if they suffered my sea storm fate.
They toss my worn, dwindling limbs back overboard. A bedraggled doll, slick with sweat, panicky-hot. My heartbeat is a beating drum.
I finger cream carpet, firm and soft, not a watery abyss, and begin to calm. I thank them. The pears. My tight-lipped saviours. Brown-laced orbs bearing womb-like, fertile flesh. They are princesses of fate. I should never have felt jealous of their sky-high connections, friendships that interlace branches, a network of companionship.
I am old. Forgotten. Half-drowning.
They are youthful. Primed as the fruitful future, bearing verdant-laced placentas.
I should never have hoped to be their friend.
Emma Wells (she/her) is a mother and full-time writer. Her poetry has been published in various literary journals and magazines. She writes flash fiction, short stories, and novels. She is currently writing her sixth novel.
Instagram: @ewellswriting