The sunlight slides down the wall, and now it pauses, just before it puddles onto the carpet. The apartment is warm. And motionless. The wall stares back at me until I actually see through it. The room disappears in a late-afternoon haze and I step into a memory of incense and wood smoke; of dust on my tongue and leaves in my hair. Of joyful dancing, and my sister’s hand clasped in my mine. She younger than me, but her hands are so much larger. She wears a large steel ring on her pinky. Her nails are bitten off, receding into her cuticles. There is dirt on her elbow and across her shoulder. But she doesn’t care. I can hear bagpipes and the beat of a drum – a bodhran ticking away, puncturing the evening air. I can hear voices, conversations filtered through years of looking back. I turn my head trying to make out the words.
In the memory, my heart is light and free. I go running through cobble-stone streets, my sister hastening after.
In the late afternoon, the sunshine flushes pink, and disappears into the floor.
My heart feels ill. There is no smoke and incense to comfort it.
