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There was a day last fall, when the tree's branches were nearly bare. The ground was coated by a thick mat of wet yellow leaves that clung to the grass like an moist old rag, extending for miles in every direction broken sporadically by the buildings and fences of Suburbia. My rusting mailbox opened with a creak of protest. Inside the morning paper lay folded against the side of the steel mailbox. I reached out and grasped the cold slightly damp pages, feeling the ink smudge onto my naked fingers. I had not had the time to look at it this morning, I had been late for my meeting ever since I woke up, realizing that my alarm clock had broken. Now at last I would have a few hours to waste eating my precooked fish in front of some American soap opera before I finally could put an end to my day by collapsing into a dreamless sleep. I put my prepackaged morsel into the oven and sat down at the table flicked through the television channels, settling finally on a rather tacky talk show, were a smiling woman was happily quizzing her guests about their self-alleged paranoid fear of death while the apathetic audience clapped mechanically for everyone of their host's witticisms. As the program paused to allow the viewers to receive a few well thought out messages from its sponsors, I lifted up the paper. I glanced through the headlines ignoring the demented driveling of a beautifully made-up housewife, who was enthusiastically advocating the use of a new cleaning detergent. I indifferently eyed through the catastrophes of the world glossily presented to me in colored ink. Then I noticed a small editorial column pushed up against the left-hand corner of the page by the more exciting news. I read through the brief article that bitterly condemned the western world, urging it to become more spiritual. To prove its point it cited as a utopian example the customs of an obscure tribe, living somewhere in Indonesia who believed that everything had a soul which had to be respected. Due to this conviction and the remoteness of their dwelling they were forced to live off a diet that consisted exclusively of sago-palm nuts. I laughed out loud to myself when I read this, forming a mental picture of a bunch of overzealous, undernourished pygmies languishing away in some distant third world country. But the thought had set my mind wandering, if everything really had a soul then would it not mean that even the sago-palm nuts had their own mysterious spiritual life? How did they feel when some starved native's teeth broke their smooth symmetrical shells and crushed them into utter nothingness? How did my television feel, I mused looking at the flickering screen in front of me, displaying many millions of pictures a day for my leisurely pleasure? How did all that old worn furniture my grandmother kept locked up in her basement feel? I imagined it as a virtual concentration camp of enslaved souls. I could see the gray-walled room clearly in front of me and I fell away from my surroundings disappearing into a world daydreams, failing notice how smoke started to seep out the oven from the burnt crisp that was once was my intended dinner......... A dusty lampshade gazed placidly at the dirty gray wall in front of it. The concrete spoke of nothingness as its sharp corners bent out of sight of the spying lamp. Many a year the brick-red lampshade had covered the long-dead corpse of a dismal light-bulb, languishing in the forgotten attic room in the deepest dungeon of the skyscraper. One day the day of judgment would come, one day the withered old lady who owned the lampshade would finally perish and the light of day would once again shine on the battered old lampshade. The pitiless heir to the old crone would drag it up into the open before mercifully ending its existence and dumping unceremoniously down a garbage chute. Hopefully by then the council would have registered the public outcry by then, and the lampshade could be resurrected into a new, more fruitful, life at the county recycling plant. The steel reinforced concrete laughed soundlessly as it silently mocked the lampshade's pathetic aspirations, crushing the lampshade's dreams under its tremendous weight. But, like all those who taunt others, the wall, too, was scared, his straight gray facade and sharp angular were no longer esthetically appealing. Functionalism was dying and its representatives were being broken down one by one. It remembered its predecessor, the soft-spoken neo-classical sandstone mansion whose slight graceful pillars were crushed under the steam roller that heralded the Industrial Age. The lampshade watched the wall writhe in agony at the thought of its own imminent destruction with a look of blank indifference. It had been through a lot and was prone to fall back into its memories: to swim in the warm sea of nostalgia and meditate on the evils of the present. It stayed there for many hours completely ignoring its drab surroundings and the unending endless passing of time from present to past, letting them melt away under the hot blowtorch of fantasy. The lampshade dreamed. A dream that was as old as time itself, a dream that attempted to defy time and laugh at the passing of the years. Laboring to ignore the incessant regular ticking of the old gray digital wall watch, the lampshade let its mind wander, fleeing across the illusionary desert of immortality, running frantically away from its own soul. "Why?" the lampshade cried wretchedly inside its dusty cloth covering. "Why can't I be forever fashionable? Why must my mistress' appreciation of me change as the years pass? I have not changed. Why should she? Why should she discard so carelessly what she once labored many dreary hours for the pleasure of owning." Suddenly the lampshade, who had never truly known how to control itself, radiated its despair out over the stagnant space around it, smashing into the wall, bouncing off the broken stool, flinging itself at the moth-eaten draperies and finally throwing itself before the elderly gramophone sobbing in desperate fear. The gramophone, the draperies, the broken stool, the watch and the wall staring stupefied at the distraught lampshade. This time not one appliance giggled, not a single utensil dared to snicker and not a single piece of furniture dared to move an inch. The loaded atmosphere grew more and more tense as the silence continued to reign unchallenged, even the dust froze in midfall. Then the glacial chill cracked. "A maniac" said the stool hesitantly. "Lost his mind hasn't he?" rustled the draperies. "Had to happen sooner or later" shrugged the gramophone "It's all his own fault really, I'd say" stated the wall bluntly thereby effectively defusing the remaining tension and flinging a thinly meshed net of utter isolation over the unfortunate lampshade. At that moment, Fate decided to let the most unexpected happen. A slow clicking sound was heard originating from the locked door at the other end of the room. The room's occupants trembled with nameless terror, all except for the lampshade who dejectedly slouched under its punishing net no longer caring what destiny might bring. A set of keys rattled outside against the steel door. Then the surprised hinges left their accustomed positions and ponderously swung the door open. A bent shadow moved in through the opening followed by a wizened old woman, who hobbled along supported by a thin fake ivory cane. A larger shadow trailed in behind this time accompanying a stout man who appraisingly surveyed the cramped room and its silent occupants. "Well, well, well" he murmured to himself. Then in a louder voice he declared "I doubt we'll find anythin' 'ere, but lemme see whatye got. OK?" The ancient woman shivered at the sound of the coarse, rasping accent. Her dignity, however, was, as always, impeccable. Her wrinkled features hardened somewhat, but didn't flicker noticeably. "Hey, 'ere's sumthin'!" the man exclaimed pointing at an old battered lamp. "Yes, " the lady ventured, "it is definitely quite an original object." "I'll give ya a couple of bucks for it" The elderly lady nodded, almost imperceptibly and the deal was done. Money changed hands a few minutes later and the lampshade never saw the room again....... I coughed as the acrid smoke searched its way into my lungs. I looked up from my reveries and stared at the flames leaping from the oven licking at a pile of old discarded newspapers, swallowing them with an insatiable greed and spreading down the kitchen counter in search of more infernal nourishment. I gazed it blankly as if I could not comprehend reality playing out its fiery act in front of my eyes. Then, finally, I got up and walked out into the slow drizzle outside and I have not stopped walking since. |
Author's Note:
