tl-os - Tumblr blog

[tl-os]

Helen’s childhood home in the old inland valley.

[tl-os]

[tl-os]

Home Visit 5.5 and 1/18th: The sticky, cobwebby remnants of raggedy old ghosts (bad drugs) cling to her ankles now and then as she stalks The Old Dark House.

[tl-os]

"Hier soir, je lui ai permis de m'emmener dans la chambre d'hôtel où je l'ai tuée il y a vingt-cinq ans (et demi)..."

[tl-os]

_

[tl-os]

She thinks they call her The Mad Lady in The House.

But in reality nobody noticed when she arrived, when she moved in.

“Nobody knows you are here, Pandora,” she tells herself as she lays on the floor of her grandmother’s closet and watches the sunlight and windows play colorful games on the ceiling of the back wall. “Are you sure that you are, in fact, here?”

Nobody answers.

[tl-os]

I was in the living room reading “Bellefleur” (again), and when I looked up the light had changed. The room was now dark and spot-lit in curious places where lamps had never stood.

Something, someone, somewhere. Was it me?

I got up and walked into the hallway, and instead of my bedroom, I entered the large office where the landlord (he measured everything) kept all of his paperwork strewn around the room in messy piles. And then I walked into the hallway that communicates with the apartment next door. (I like them well enough, but living without a locked door—or any door at all— between us is unnerving. So far, there has never been an issue. Nobody has wandered into our apartment. I would never dare intrude on their privacy.) Any other night I might wind up in what I like to call The Yard Sale Room - full of tables displaying costume jewelry, trinkets, textiles, china and flatware, long rambling letters full of apologies for heinous acts committed lifetimes ago, funereal urns, musical instruments long silent, coffee cans full of buttons, two verdigris deer, champagne flutes, three perfect gold spheres, empty journals, tarnished swords, One Enamel Eye, tin ice cube trays, heaps of dried flowers, lots of small jars filled with a viscous dark liquid, a collection of ceramic redwoods and sycamores, wooden spoons, a diploma, empty decorative boxes, one large stone horse, a disintegrating shopping bag full of sponges, dishwashing liquid, a can of powder cleanser, laundry detergent, fabric softener, dryer sheets, window cleaner, steel wool pads, and scrub brushes (c. 1978?), two pallets of 5 & ½ inch white candles, an entire collection of hagiographies in fine-tooled leather binding, magnifying glasses and mirrors (all broken), one pair child’s (size 3) ballet shoes, never worn, four distinctly different samovars, a pair of arms, envelopes full of receipts, hotel keys, lazy susans holding little jars of bleached herbs and spices long inert, brown paper grocery bags overflowing with prescription pill bottles (not empty), maps, a tiny little spinning wheel constructed from unpainted wood, and shards of glass crusted with some dark, rusty substance.

But no clocks. Not a single clock to tick. Just silence. Alone in the room with the weight of it all.

[tl-os]

There’s No Place. {this doesn’t feel} Like home (you) [left] (me) [here].

[tl-os]

la réponse fauve

[tl-os]

“I am so happy in the silky damp dark of the labyrinth…

and there is no thread.” - Hélène Cixous

[tl-os]

{*whispering secrets in the dark, p. i*}

[tl-os]

[tl-os]

[tl-os]

in the living room or, 5&1/2?

[tl-os]

[tl-os]

hide and seek

“I was standing at the kitchen sink washing dishes and I heard a voice in the living room. ‘it was your fault, you went too far, you pushed and pushed…” It wasn’t the tv, the tv was switched off. I turned off the faucet. ‘it was pity, I felt sorry for you…’ The voice was familiar, harsh, toneless; an ugly, whiny alto that grated hard on my brain. ‘I allowed you to manipulate me into it but now it’s all my fault…’ I turned and walked into the dining room and saw myself sitting in the living room, talking on the phone - a wall of hot, dark anger knocked me down and I could hear myself screaming, ‘I left you in the desert but you keep coming back - why won’t you stay buried?’ All four corners went black and closed in as my ears began to ring.”

[tl-os]