The Scarlet Blanket
(After Vincent Van Gogh’s Room At Arles)
by Aleathia Drehmer
The blue door creaked like the bones of an old woman as Joseph’s calloused hand pushed it open. He sighed a stale breath into the room. It was meager. Everything about his life was meager and he couldn’t help but wish for something more, just this once, but no matter how hard he wished for that, all he came home to was the tiny wooden bed covered in a threadbare scarlet blanket his mother had sewn for him before her passing. There was no room on that bed for the warmth of another, no room for a slender body to lie next to his, so he never arranged for it to happen.
Joseph sat on the chair with the green rattan seat. It groaned beneath him even though he was not a large man. He recognized that even the furniture sensed the heaviness of his life. He contemplated washing his hands and face in the basin on the table….only contemplated it. Joe lacked the energy to stand again to make his body presentable for the sheets. So he sat there silently watching the wind inch the windows inward changing the light against the blue walls. It was a simple thing to appreciate and he couldn’t even find the decency to do that.
He unlaced his boots caked with mud and let them each thump to the planked wood floor scattering dirt under the bed. Joseph let his head fall into his hands, finally spent. There was nothing left to do.
(After Vincent Van Gogh’s Room At Arles)
by Aleathia Drehmer
The blue door creaked like the bones of an old woman as Joseph’s calloused hand pushed it open. He sighed a stale breath into the room. It was meager. Everything about his life was meager and he couldn’t help but wish for something more, just this once, but no matter how hard he wished for that, all he came home to was the tiny wooden bed covered in a threadbare scarlet blanket his mother had sewn for him before her passing. There was no room on that bed for the warmth of another, no room for a slender body to lie next to his, so he never arranged for it to happen.
Joseph sat on the chair with the green rattan seat. It groaned beneath him even though he was not a large man. He recognized that even the furniture sensed the heaviness of his life. He contemplated washing his hands and face in the basin on the table….only contemplated it. Joe lacked the energy to stand again to make his body presentable for the sheets. So he sat there silently watching the wind inch the windows inward changing the light against the blue walls. It was a simple thing to appreciate and he couldn’t even find the decency to do that.
He unlaced his boots caked with mud and let them each thump to the planked wood floor scattering dirt under the bed. Joseph let his head fall into his hands, finally spent. There was nothing left to do.
