Creative Response: Change
The soft wisps of winter dissolve across the grainy evening sky. Illuminated assemblages of nocturnal life awaken to the frostbitten scene of a silent beauty as the apprehensive sunset flirts with the blushing horizon, perching itself inches above the suppressed waves, interrupting a black and white moment.
Since the nurse had informed me of her deteriorating condition, my grandmother would spend every afternoon resting gently on the edge of her crimson rocking chair, intently gazing beyond the monotonous beaches behind our house and out to the mournful skyline whilst contemplating her fragmented thoughts. Every so often, she would quietly reiterate to me. “Cait, the horizon is so lovely. Isn’t it the loveliest thing you’ve ever seen?” I would reply with a smile, desperately biting my lip in an attempt to prevent myself from crying. A slow breeze invaded the room, embracing her roughened face as the audacious trees undressed themselves of their decayed leaves.
Stretching over to hold her ghostly hand, I notice purple veins and dark spots pervading through the freckled skin, the remnants of etched lifetime experience. The cold hand, which had once been reflective of my childhood, seemed lifeless in comparison to what it had used to represent; past memories. Her familiar, yet sagging, eyes gleam with proportioned shades of azure as she muses upon her own memories. She is changing with the seasons.
“Cait, the horizon is so lovely. Isn’t it the loveliest thing you’ve ever seen?”
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The difference between happiness and melancholy is difficult to distinguish. Clusters of crimson roses and white peace lilies fill the room, representative of the inevitable grief which was to come. Their previously overwhelming scent was fading, not dissimilar to my grandmother’s memory. The gentle groans of her rocking chair seeped into the floorboards which creaked under the pressure, like an arthritic old man waking from an afternoon nap.
The lethargic horizon now tiredly cradles the sun, forming streaks of rusty orange against the translucent sky as the nation drifts into a unanimous slumber. An evanescent skyline hesitates in the distance; a rebel child refusing to sleep.
“Cait, the horizon is so lovely. Isn’t it the loveliest thing you’ve ever seen?”
I was used to it; it was just another symptom of her continuously worsening condition. Nevertheless, I would maintain the façade of smiling and biting my tongue, suppressing my frustration. Timidly observing from behind its velvety blanket of stars, the moon appeared to sigh as if he knew the exact number of days my grandmother had left before she reached the bittersweet embrace of immortality. Frequently I would struggle to maintain composure, almost disintegrating at the sight of her greying body which continually echoed the voice of an extinct