Withered Illusions

It is a memory from the rafters of days long gone. It holds no dearness of heart or sweet song, but inundates in a taste most vile of lasting resentment. At least the choice is mine now, so I always choose to drown the memory along with its tattered dreams.

When it manages to rise, however, it transpires clearly as though born anew each time, to haunt with a predatory nature, traipsing through submerged scenes.

I see a single slipper, lying on a leaf strewn lawn, its pale pink loveliness decorated in small roses. It is a stark reminder of beauty framed in man’s cruelty, its delicateness wrapped in the wrath of a single man's actions. It is a moment frozen in time, emblazoned with impending doom, a failure fueled by anger and drunkenness, manifested in a fist of rage supreme. Time is suspended and cemented betwixt dark violence and pale weakness, all hope tattered and destroyed amongst the withered eaves.

It resides deep, a memory best forgotten, yet resurfacing too often to tease and taunt while replaying like a reel-to-reel old-fashioned movie. The main character’s fist looms high as though he's Caesar, come to conquer Rome and its surroundings. He strikes a pose of intimidation and swings, the force and brevity of his fist unjust, unkind as two sets of youthful eyes look on in abject fear. She’s thrown, stumbles and falls, while her slipper flies high, descending in an arc before landing with a thud on a bed of cracked leaves, its final resting place.

It was an onslaught, a barrage of emotions that sprang forth inside, scarring youth’s survival, and all within a single breath and heartbeat. Disbelief, angst, disappointment, horror, anger, loathing, and something more substantial, akin to hatred, sprouted to take root with its intensity carried on wings of youth’s wide-eyed innocence. A new perception of a man who dared call himself ‘father and husband’; innocence and illusions flew away on wings of something sinister, crudely alarming in its cold, dispelling truth.

Life’s winding path of crevices can pivot, leaving one stumbling in efforts to spurn the recurrence of such resentments. Still, despite the best of endeavors, steadfast and firm, they will latch tight, though years drift by, some slowly and some swiftly, and a time of treasured golden haze arrives. The struggle to reconcile past resentments remains resolute, a firm impediment and harsh reality, encompassing the circles of our lives.

I think it will be never - no, never though I live a thousand years - never will my mind release the sordid memory buried within the crux of my soul's depth, of one solitary, rose encrusted, and pink slipper – my dear, soft, sweet, treasured mother’s lonely shoe – discarded, much like her broken, dying marriage, upon a bed of withered brown and scattered leaves.

No, I think it will be never………….no, never though I live a thousand years………

Cynthia D Calder, 08.13.25