Portrait
They asked her to write a self-portrait, a personality sketch of herself, and she went blank. She thought of her son's room. She thought of the upper corner of the room, where ceiling met the walls. The ceiling was off-white and the walls were white with a trace of pink. She wrote this: "At the corner of the ceiling in my son's room, two walls meet. The ceiling is off-white and so are the walls, but the walls have a touch of pink." She then wrote, "At the other end of the house, in the living room, is a fireplace, surrounded by red brick. My other son was fascinated by the space between the bricks, where the bricks are pasted together. He was fascinated for five minutes, then he stopped caring."
She paused and then she wrote again. "Our roof slopes. I'm told that that's to keep water from accumulating and leaks from occurring. The water drains away, and in the winter the snow slides off. But I think they just make the roofs that way because roofs are supposed to slope. It doesn't look like a real house if there's not a sloping roof on top." She put down the pen, picked it up. "We have a porch and a chair on the porch, but no one ever sits on the porch. Some evenings the people up the street sit on their porch. Once a cop pulled over and asked them what they were doing. 'Sitting on our porch,' they said. The cop thought they were drug dealers. Only drug dealers sit on their porches at night. In fact, they were drug dealers, and he was keeping his eye on them."
She stopped once more. "I turn on the ceiling fan sometimes when I cook." Then she said, "I was talking at the dinner table the other night, and my sons gave each other a glance. They didn't say anything but I know what the glance meant. It meant, 'I wish she'd shut up.' But I didn't know how to stop talking. I don't even remember what I was saying; I just remember that I couldn't stop." Then she wrote, "The neighbors on the other side have a metal rooster on their roof, a weather vane, but the house is just a house and the rooster is just for decoration. They work in offices. They don't need to know which way the wind blows." She stopped again. "The wind will blow anyway. Sometimes it blows through the ceiling vent in my kitchen."
She had a final thought. "I live most of my life going between the kitchen and my sons' rooms, the ones with the off-white ceilings and the slightly pink walls." "The end," she wrote.
She paused and then she wrote again. "Our roof slopes. I'm told that that's to keep water from accumulating and leaks from occurring. The water drains away, and in the winter the snow slides off. But I think they just make the roofs that way because roofs are supposed to slope. It doesn't look like a real house if there's not a sloping roof on top." She put down the pen, picked it up. "We have a porch and a chair on the porch, but no one ever sits on the porch. Some evenings the people up the street sit on their porch. Once a cop pulled over and asked them what they were doing. 'Sitting on our porch,' they said. The cop thought they were drug dealers. Only drug dealers sit on their porches at night. In fact, they were drug dealers, and he was keeping his eye on them."
She stopped once more. "I turn on the ceiling fan sometimes when I cook." Then she said, "I was talking at the dinner table the other night, and my sons gave each other a glance. They didn't say anything but I know what the glance meant. It meant, 'I wish she'd shut up.' But I didn't know how to stop talking. I don't even remember what I was saying; I just remember that I couldn't stop." Then she wrote, "The neighbors on the other side have a metal rooster on their roof, a weather vane, but the house is just a house and the rooster is just for decoration. They work in offices. They don't need to know which way the wind blows." She stopped again. "The wind will blow anyway. Sometimes it blows through the ceiling vent in my kitchen."
She had a final thought. "I live most of my life going between the kitchen and my sons' rooms, the ones with the off-white ceilings and the slightly pink walls." "The end," she wrote.