Fading light.

This short story is again, about death. Not scary, just a little sad. I really need to move on from this topic.

The curtain fluttered through the window, it’s once golden star pattern faded, see though.  Cars whooshed past below and here she sat. Watching the people hurry by, heads bent against the wind, the setting sun making dancing patterns on the ground.

She brushed the curtain aside with gnarled, knobbly fingers, her nails catching on the threadbare strands. It was hard to believe it had come to this.

Around the studio apartment, her trophies and black and white photos of her dancing with Fredrick were tarnished and worn. Curled edges creeping in on the memories she had tried so hard to hold onto.

This is what a life of dancing had bought her, a lonely life where friends were competitors and the latest, shiny, new dancer meant you were pushed to the wayside.

She earned calloused feet from practising twelve hours a day, knees that buckled and ached as she shuffled along, but her heart ached most of all. She should have had her name up in lights, she should have been in film beside Ginger Rodgers and Rita Hayworth. Gliding and twirling for the camera, captured and immortalised forever.

Now this is all she would leave behind, memories and not even good memories, just adequate ones. So, here she sits everyday as the world moves on below and she remembers the life she once had, as the pale, pink paint blisters and peels off the wooden window sill. She sits and wonders if when the end comes, she will finally have some peace

It’s a horrible thing, waiting to die.

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Photo by Mark Fugarino  via Flickr, licensed under Creative Commons