Someone Else's Life

I stand waiting, watching the glowing numbers count down, anticipating the sharp dinging sound of the old microwave.

It shall soon alert me that frozen meatballs, mashed potatoes and carrots have been heated through; now ready for consumption.

Ah, there it is!

Opening the door, I reach for the black container arranged neatly under a white light bulb, pulling it towards me.

Removing the plastic film - sealed like a lid - hot steam releases itself into the quiet air, filling this kitchen with a semblance of home cooking from days long gone.

It rises above and I look up, feeling nostalgic, wondering about memories others may have created under the canopy of this room.

Scouring countertops cluttered with dishes and papers and pieces of a personal existence that do not belong to me, I look for a place to set down the meal.

Searching to no avail, I hold it instead, facing myriads of photos tacked randomly upon wallpaper printed with lemons.

There's color. There's black and white. There's a young man standing next to a Joshua Tree in what appears to be the painted desert - maybe 1970 something?

Tee-shirt, shorts, and a smile pulling at his eyes like a puppet on a string, leaves this viewer wondering at the hint of lostness just below the surface of those two brown irises.

I stand closer, squinting.

I believe it is him.

Those eyes, I have seen them somewhere, recently.

Here he's standing by a bicycle, strapping on a helmet, perhaps to ride a ribbon of highway. Yellow leaves have landed at his feet from a tree I cannot see, and the massive mountains in the distance announce he is far northwest, away from his southern Tennessee roots.

The mystery of fall is upon him. He is young and ready for the race, even if it is against himself.

This one is torn on the corner. A woman with one long braid draping down the side of an almost regal cheekbone, a small child on her lap. A boy perhaps? So hard to tell.

Her eyes appear gentle within the graying tones of ink, arms wrapped securely around the bundle she holds, both faces seeming to fade away as the years take back this moment in time.

I am drawn to this one and lift it from the scrapbooked wall scattered above the kitchen sink, leaving behind a small, yellowed square that shows just how long it lived in that space amongst houses, flowers, pets, and groups of people cut out of the picture by inexperienced photographers.

Blurred hands, heads, and bodies of souls I will never know.

A time I never knew.

Someone else’s life.

On the other side of the wall an old man sits in front of a metal television tray, and I gather myself to walk through the doorway he once walked, independently, when the journey was kinder, and the world still spun.

When he was strong, agile, and his sturdy frame rode bicycles with the sun in his face, the wind at his back. Now small, frail, and tucked between two floral pillows on a worn-out couch, it has surrendered to the clock.

A stranger in his own home, serving food he does not want, I place the lunch before him. Just a black and white portrait, tinted with two brown irises staring out the window, sifting through colors of painted deserts and Joshua Trees that live forever.