"Saw an older woman walking down the street this morning. Her hair was dyed flaming red. She was barefoot, wore pink pants and a red top. She carried a cake."
You might say that he had channeled Hemingway,
concisely, precisely setting the scene from which to glean a story
from the barest of descriptions: hair and what she wore.It's what's left out that makes us gnash our teeth; we wail
and cry for more. The color scheme alone upsets, unsettles,
but her shoes! Where are her shoes? And why a cake?
What's that about? Wouldn't cookies make more sense to you?
Unless she traded footwear for a feast, to gorge on sugar,
one last treat before she starts the treatment she can ill afford,
hair dyed scarlet in defiance prior to it falling out. She's dying, too,
that is to say she knows what's coming, trials and tribulations,
but by all that's holy, also understands that she won't die today.
(c) Ellen Gillette, 2013
Mark Davis, features writer for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, put the above-quoted post on Facebook this week, which gnawed at my imagination until I had to write something or scream.
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