blackberry brandy

The day ticked itself into dusk like a clock that needed to be wound; dripped down toward the horizon like weak coffee trickling over the edge of a dirty mug.  Mabel sat in the darkened kitchen of her purple house, watching the shadows of the oak trees in the yard turn mauve and wiggle across the walls.  She sipped slowly at a glass of blackberry brandy.  She tried to understand how all the opportunities she once had flew away on black butterfly wings, leaving her alone in a house so big it swallowed light and sound.  A letter unanswered, a door unopened, could it be as simple as that?  She thought of going for a bicycle ride, just down to the store, maybe, to buy apples and honey and bread; then remembered that her bicycle was rusted and missing a tire.  It had sat leaned up against the house for so long, next to the lawn gnome, in the overgrown grass.

The phone bleated from down the hall, and Mabel jumped.  She let the answering machine pick up.  It was either a telemarketer, or her mother calling to chastise her for missing Easter dinner.  Mabel took another sip of brandy.  She thought about getting in her car and driving somewhere, anywhere, but then decided she was too tipsy to drive, and the car didn't have much gas in it.  Such a pity.  She was dressed in a soft linen dress.  It was eggshell-colored, with black lace around the neck and sleeves and hem, and no one would get to see it.

Mabel got up and turned the radio on.  She scanned the airwaves until she happened upon a station that appealed to her.  She could barely hear the music through the static – it must have been coming from far away – but she left it on.  The DJ played Hazel Dickens and Loretta Lynn and June Carter.  It was exactly what she wanted to hear; the twangy guitars and voices cracked with tears.          

Mabel lit a votive candle.  It smelled like sweet peas and mint.  She watched the flame lick at the candle until it was nothing more than a puddle of wax on the scratched-up old table.  She swallowed the last of the brandy and slowly got up from her chair.  At least the chattering in her head had stopped; her thoughts now as quiet as the purple house.  She switched off the radio, climbed the stairs, and crawled into the feather bed where a dreamless sleep awaited her.