ENGRAVED
by Toti O’Brien
Today the elephant print fell from the mantelpiece. I am just letting you know. Not my fault. Someone pulled a curtain that I had slipped behind it in order to keep it open. Well, my fault. I should have considered how fragile are things—how uncertain, precarious their balance.
The glass broke and I removed every fragment of it, every crumb, disposing of them with maximum care. I have learned—I have, yes—how fragile are people and how easily they get hurt, wounded, broken, ripped open.
*
I have briskly recalled—as I hovered above the trashcan, frame in hand—when you rung me and I picked up the phone, though I was driving. I am anxious that way. I must have sensed it was an emergency. I swerved, almost lost control of the car when you shouted: “My dear, I am dying”. I remember as if it were now how I steered inside a parking lot, clumsily maneuvering the wheel with my left—cell phone shaking in my right. “I have leukemia,” you said “ and it’s going to go very fast”. Damn if I can recall what I said. I guess nothing at all.
*
I have kept many of the gadgets you gave me. Thrift store treasures you unwrapped, each time, with a sparkle in your eyes—excited by the hunt, the booty, the largesse even your tiny budget could afford. Also sure that I’d appreciate every part of your gift—the intention, the attention, the love. Plus the object itself, always chosen with some special reference, special meaning. I did love the print with the elephants in particular. It is still on the mantelpiece, yet more prominent now that I have got rid of most things superfluous. Yours weren’t.
Let me tell you that only the glass broke. The artwork’s unscathed. I have used the opportunity for carefully dusting it off.
I can’t grant you that I will replace the glass. Perhaps, later. I know I should. It would be time for me to admit it, all right—things are almost as delicate as people are. I said almost. We can shield them better if we take the time, if we try. We can fix them more easily—things don’t rot from the inside, don’t get sick. They get old, they deteriorate—it is true. But it’s usually a slower process and, gosh, how simple it is to replace parts, renew, reconstruct them—comparatively speaking. I should purchase a new glass for the print.
And still let me tell you. Today I enjoyed the sight of naked ink—the strange purity of colors seen without interference. Glass isn’t entirely sheer. I touched each of the elephants as they caroled around—red row, purple row. So more vivid than usual, they came alive.
*
There are days when I can’t look at death in the face. Today was one of those and I didn’t know. I did not realize it until when I hovered above the trashcan, pouring in shards of glass, making sure none of them escaped.
From the driveway, where I keep the trash bins, I watched the houses on the other side of the street, the trees, the pale sky of a gloomy and damp summer morning. Perhaps the absence of sunlight did the trick. I was suddenly oppressed by the distance. Yours and, sympathetically, that of all those who like you have departed.
How you slip away, remote, distant, ineluctably pushed by something as futile, anodyne and empty as… time? What is it? Thin air, I guess—a nonentity, like this greyish and neutered sky. Yet how violent is this fall back of yours—how vertiginous. You look—feel—look… you are smaller and smaller. And I see the landscape in front of me and I accuse it of hiding you, blocking your way. I accuse it of treason as if it—the landscape—slyly concealed a passage, a gap that could allow me to reach you, you to reach me or at least get within ear’s range and shout…
*
Hello?
Incidentally, here is a detail I’m sure you would appreciate and I was about to forget. As I caressed the elephants, brushing their silhouettes—although aware I shouldn’t put my fingertips upon a piece of art, I couldn’t resist… As I outlined the noble, grand beasts you once confided to my care, I realized an ant had crept among them. A real ant—now a corpse, printed on paper as well. Etched, its tint shifted over time into an eerie color of rust. Perfect pattern—precious, minute design.
And ridiculous, if juxtaposed to the cohort of pachyderms it had dared approaching, as if it had wished to acquaint them, to join the lot.
I swept the corpse away. It dissolved, like ashes, into a pinch of invisible dust.
Toti O’Brien is the Italian Accordionist with the Irish Last Name. She was born in Rome then moved to Los Angeles, where she makes a living as a self-employed artist, performing musician and professional dancer. Her work has most recently appeared in Colorado Boulevard, Thin Air, Wilderness House and the Hamilton Stone Review.
