Seven years in this house and I had never seen the sunlight shine through my neighbors windows at this angle before. Like any good American, I lived by the clock. Everything that happened outside of my schedule may as well have not existed to me. Now, looking out from my bed in the afternoon, I felt as though I had stepped outside of my own life as a ghost.
Angela in HR called this break a Mandatory Grieving Period. Things had come to a head at work when I screamed and kicked over the tea stand three days prior. I was sent to HR and then directly home. “This is very unlike you. We think you just need some time to deal with this loss... appropriately.”
Three days later, I felt as though I had unwillingly floated away. Outside, the street was empty of cars and people. I imagined that the houses were not real houses at all, but rather the backdrop of a movie set, nothing but the face of a house on support beams. There was nothing to watch and contemplate; the only place my gaze could wander to was within my own mind.
Existing outside of the time machine made me feel invisible. I was a domino two inches to the left of my row. Each day would begin with alarm clocks like the first domino to fall, there would be traffic jams and lunch breaks and afternoon coffee, each of these a domino falling in the lives of the rest of society. By the end of the day, all the dominoes were scattered on the ground together, completely spent. But I was still there, standing, waiting for something to come along and knock me over.
I sat on my bed watching the final moments of golden-hour light shining through my neighbor’s kitchen window. Then, through the window, I saw two hands move forward into the frame, dipping into the sunshine, dust dancing in the mellow, gold light. The hands turned on the water of the sink and began washing a plate. They had sleeves of a sweatshirt rolled up to the elbows. Then, without a performance about it, the hands dried themselves and were gone. It was beautiful.
©2020 by Shelsea Ochoa. All rights reserved.