Sketches in Memorandum | "A Fond and Absent Glance"

© Alice Newbold 2019

I remember…a woman. A woman standing in the second-story display window of an old boutique in an old part of town that I never learned the name of. I was a child, then. Whenever we would drive by her store, I’d look up, and there she’d be standing: stately, unmoving, fetching as always in her gossamer white gown, juxtaposed by a tidy little room with handsome furnishings. A silent and headless sentinel of the street, a winsome witness on a lofty crystal-screened perch. Sometimes, it seemed as though she would suspend her vigilance for a moment to return my gaze, smiling an absent smile, then resume her diligent watch. She seemed to me expectant, somehow. Patient. Who was she watching for, I wonder? A friend? A lover?

Whoever she was waiting for, they came.

Last I saw of her, she was gone, the roof blown off her chambers, walls crumbling, glass shattered, her lovely furniture all dusty and smashed to bits. I didn’t see the rescue happen, but it must have been very dashing, full of flair and dramatic entrances and a particular disregard for property damage.

I’m sorry to have missed it, but I’m happy for her, wherever she is now.