Helen ignored her health, and it finally caught up with her. |
That unexpected knocking was a wheeze of terror in the breath of early morning. Startled from my rapid eye movement, I groped for a measure of comprehension, and dashed to the door. My elderly neighbor, breathless and pale, holding to the ledge of panic with weak fingernails, fearing for his wife. Then a snap-like sequence ending in a plea, and a rapid return unto his stricken love. I stood on the icy porch and listened as the siren slashed the pre-dawn quiet like the plaintive wail of a mass extinction. In the glare of lights that made me squint, I waved an arm overhead, and directly paramedics were hurrying down stairs through the door. A drop of perspiration quivered above Tom's lip; he searched for keys, stirring like a question mark in blue slippers and half-buttoned sky-blue flannel. Helen ignored the charity of her health for over thirty years; no doctor looked into her eyes. Perhaps it was the throw-rug of pride under which she swept improvidence; I do not know. But a diamond will not sparkle when enshrouded in a tomb. Another species, a gray, bewildered cat, remained beneath the kitchen table, motionless. Early on a Saturday, fine crystal fell to jagged rock, as I looked down to witness the consequence of neglect. 31 Lines Writer’s Cramp Winner 5-22-20 |