Eyeglass Windows

by Piper Davenport

On the banks of the shore by the lighthouse, there sits a fine piece of land

surrounded by shade trees with thick, green leaves that fall from the sky. They

travel down to the eager coyotes waiting below, who travel in packs through looking for some innocent thing to snatch and devour. They pass by

the open window of the backside of a home in a row of homes.

On the table sits a pair of eyeglasses, spectacled, clean and light and through them, the writer creates magic on the page: words to live, breathe, fuck,

suck and sleep by. The coyotes continue upon their journey but the voyage for

everything else remains the same. Soon, the leaves will fall, the cars will putter

like , the sand on the beaches will harden, the red faces will

weep for the coming of St. Nick, the animals will disappear, the laughter will stop, the stillness begins.

Through the window, the eyeglasses will sit there every night with dust particles swirling from the germs in the air. They will wait for the broken sound of the pebbles crushing on the gravel cement, the sight of silent owls, the chugging of boats on the river, easing their way up the Victoria Sound. The eyeglasses will wait for the moment when the cool breeze blows the weight of the curtains onto the desk, knocking the eyeglasses to the floor, where the mice eagerly await. However, the mice are not so much interested in the eyeglasses as they are in the hope that if they hold them hostage, then the owner might come searching for them and bring food along.

These are the rules that one must follow when traveling past the window into the room where the eyeglasses are accidentally broken and through a crack in the closet door and through an opening in the wall. It is here that the eyeglasses are separated and where they are found by the owner much later. A gift of redemption, a tunnel into space, the destruction of hysteria dampens the evening.

The curtains have nothing to sway against. The window has nothing to send particles of dust through the air. The coyotes have nothing inside that particular room to observe them as they walk by. Even when a truck rattles and the desk shakes, nothing solid will clatter against the wood. The world might stop for a moment but then something else will come along that redefines the existence of possibility because the circle of life cannot be complete without those little things that matter little to most except for those that need them.

The mice will eventually abandon the room when the owner does and look elsewhere for food. The windows break one night when a burglar breaks into the home. The curtains are torn down and destroyed. The coyotes are killed by a hunter. The windows are placed in the trash and eventually the house is torn down to build another. The memories hang in the air but the objects are gone. Replaced by something better. Replaced by something newer. Replaced by something written down on another page. Replaced by something sitting on another desk. Replaced by something sitting by another window.


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