The flower silhouettes of my dad’s bedroom, spidering the walls, seem anachronistic. Only picture hooks remain, lost against their background. Did my mother, earlier away, choose this wallpaper? Can’t imagine dad being keen. But wasting time and money to change such things, would have been out of character. Or perhaps the patterns comforted him through more than ten years alone?
Two lives valuably lived now hasten into the distance.
Branch lines may wind through trees and level crossings close behind . . . yet almost everyone is special to someone. But what of such connections can remain, as uncertainty, technological blather, and the attitudes behind, become monolithic – insidiously taken for granted?
These are the days of blank space, of shadows on the wallpaper – picture hooks without pictures, hearsay . . .
Hearsay . . .
.
Lawrence Freiesleben
.