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June 2017

I’m out back behind the shed, sitting on a pile of dirt. I did a snake check before I sat, not that there ever are snakes but there was one, once, in my garage, and if I was him this back corner of the yard is where I’d take a morning nap. And I don’t want to be the one to wake him up.

I’m between a tipped over wheelbarrow, two lime green kayaks, a log pile half un-covered, a pale garden hose, an empty trailer, and a cracked black tarp. I’m feeling out of sorts back here, thinking I might organize it differently, or at all. If you even can organize that place behind the shed, maybe freshen it up a bit.

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Her name was Madeline. She was blind and deaf and old, and she lived next door. Alone. We tried to bring her cookies when we moved in but she didn’t know we waited awkwardly on her slanted front porch.

I never got to meet Madeline because she fell soon after and was brought to a convalescent home.

I only know her house. 

It waits noiselessly as time peels away all grace. Its chapped red back door falters at the top of rugged wooden steps. Its windows peer sleepily to my own through glass cracked and taped. Its paint is scruffy, its roof bedraggled. Only one small light faintly burns somewhere inside while the rest of the house lingers in damp darkness.

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My doctor’s office is purple. Bright purple. The receptionist’s hair is turquoise, or sometimes lime green.

Wearing blue jeans, blue shoes, and a blue shirt, I feel monochromatic as I rest in the orange stuffed chair in the waiting room. I observe a tank of tropical fish, the purple walls singing behind them.

Despite the contrast of the reserve of my outfit and the risk of the colors around me, I feel at home here. Like I belong. 

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