Echoes

My intake of breath warned my emotions were barely under control. I’d known this was coming.

I spent the day within the confines of the four walls I’d painted myself. The phone remained mute. Lights dimmed. Screens blackened. The shuffle of feet gone. Chatter and giggles silenced.

In the middle of what was once my heart and soul, I took no comfort in the view. Unobscured, save for the dust particles clinging to the air and the prisms of color created by my own tears, I found no refuge in the cavernous room.

Smudges, left by the many that pressed both fingers and noses against the windows, reminded me of seasons past. My own grins reflected within them.

Pieces of a familiar brown craft paper haphazardly connected by the tape’s sticky surface already covered the perimeter as if it were gift wrapped, though a festive occasion it was not.

My hand searched my pocket as my footfalls parroted so many before me. I found no comfort in running my fingers along the sharp edges of the key, once thought to be the answer to all my woes.

With one final turn, the tumblers fell into place. An audible click marked its final act; submission to an inescapable circumstance.

Like a rope hanging from the extended arm of a venerable oak, without the secured tire on which to swing, echoes of the past were all that remained.

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Photo credit : Pure Expressions Photography