Somehow Inspired By Neil Gaiman
Looking Down
As always, she will come home and sit at the kitchen table with the cat in her lap.
As always, the cat will get bored and will slide, smoothly, down to the white-blue checkered floor.
As always, she will spend the rest of the evening reading and then go to bed, when the little black letters start to swim and to dance in her tired eyes behind the thick glasses.
Tomorrow. And the day after that, and after that, and in a week and in a month, and in a year and in a century.
But not today.
Today, she’s going to visit some relatives.
Johnny looked up from his marbles, green and blue and white, glossy and half-transparent on the fluffy brown carpet.
He thought he felt a wind.
And there were some kind of bells, and a voice.
He stayed still for a while, unmoving, crouching on the floor, his chin high up, his ears trained to the quietness all around him - all was quiet again, he realized.
Eleanor stopped typing and listened for a moment.
Was it a voice she’d just heard?
No. Just a ringing in her ears, probably.
Too much work. You have to work if you’re all alone with nobody else to pay your bills.
It was almost time to go home.
She thought, vaguely, of Johnny and if he was okay, all alone at home.
The cat walked around and around the kitchen, its paws very silent on the shiny checkered floor. Its upside-down twin, white-and-blue and furry, paced the reflected kitchen beneath.
She wasn’t at home.
No, she was at yet another relative’s. An entirely different thing, now, though.
‘They’re okay. Not really happy, but okay. I’ve seen him smile, and she’s found inner peace. You can tell, from the glow. It’s a shame you can’t visit, it is.’
He sighed.
The little house slept.
Eleanor, alone in her single bed, brought in to replace the double one, dreamed of the wedding and of how things were when he was still alive.
On the mantelpiece, little Johnny’s marbles lay in their wooden box, beside the two black-framed pictures.
Putting them there, he had wished Daddy and Grandma goodnight, as he always did.
As always, she sat in her blue-and-white kitchen, with the cat in her lap. She imagined her grandson’s smile and wondered if he would look anything like his father when he grew up.
As always, she will come home and sit at the kitchen table with the cat in her lap.
As always, the cat will get bored and will slide, smoothly, down to the white-blue checkered floor.
As always, she will spend the rest of the evening reading and then go to bed, when the little black letters start to swim and to dance in her tired eyes behind the thick glasses.
Tomorrow. And the day after that, and after that, and in a week and in a month, and in a year and in a century.
But not today.
Today, she’s going to visit some relatives.
Johnny looked up from his marbles, green and blue and white, glossy and half-transparent on the fluffy brown carpet.
He thought he felt a wind.
And there were some kind of bells, and a voice.
He stayed still for a while, unmoving, crouching on the floor, his chin high up, his ears trained to the quietness all around him - all was quiet again, he realized.
Eleanor stopped typing and listened for a moment.
Was it a voice she’d just heard?
No. Just a ringing in her ears, probably.
Too much work. You have to work if you’re all alone with nobody else to pay your bills.
It was almost time to go home.
She thought, vaguely, of Johnny and if he was okay, all alone at home.
The cat walked around and around the kitchen, its paws very silent on the shiny checkered floor. Its upside-down twin, white-and-blue and furry, paced the reflected kitchen beneath.
She wasn’t at home.
No, she was at yet another relative’s. An entirely different thing, now, though.
‘They’re okay. Not really happy, but okay. I’ve seen him smile, and she’s found inner peace. You can tell, from the glow. It’s a shame you can’t visit, it is.’
He sighed.
The little house slept.
Eleanor, alone in her single bed, brought in to replace the double one, dreamed of the wedding and of how things were when he was still alive.
On the mantelpiece, little Johnny’s marbles lay in their wooden box, beside the two black-framed pictures.
Putting them there, he had wished Daddy and Grandma goodnight, as he always did.
As always, she sat in her blue-and-white kitchen, with the cat in her lap. She imagined her grandson’s smile and wondered if he would look anything like his father when he grew up.