Still in Rome

The light coming through the blinds made a filmy pattern reminiscent of the backs of pool chairs. The room was like an aquarium. The shaded parts were where the big fish were lying in wait. He crossed the room and lifted the blinds. The light coming through the window was filmy. he rubbed away the dirt and watched a crow idly peck at something dead in the street. It's movements were furtive and jerky.

He wanted to smoke, but he'd given up smoking except when he had been drinking, the same rule as everyone else he knew. He lay back down on the bed, contemplating his stomach and wondering whether he was starting to get fat. His phone rang, and he jumped out of bed to retrieve it from his pant's pocket. It was his mother.

"Hello," he said, holding the phone up to his ear and waiting expectantly for her to answer. "How are you?" he answered, crossing the room to pull aside the drapes. The crow had been joined by another crow, a larger one, who was missing one of his feet and hopped awkwardly as a result. His mother had been a vibrant, intelligent, and giving woman. As a child, she'd played classical music for him to lure him into sleep. They'd listen to Schubert or Beethoven for an hour, and he was often transported by the beauty and foreignness of the music into a dreamland of sleep. She'd carry him back to his bedroom, and he could still remember the scent of lavender that was bound up in her hair.

A couple of years earlier his mother had had a stroke, which left her partially incapacitated. Nevertheless, living so many years with the memory of his vibrant mother he was still surprised when she asked him four times when he was coming back from Rome. Her mind had slipped quietly off the track and was now plowing through fields of thick snow. As a result, he didn't relish her calls, but he didn't avoid them either. When he became frustrated, he tried to remind himself of those walks down the hallway, his cheek buried on her shoulder, his nose taking in the sweet smell of lavender from her hair.

"When are you coming home?" she asked.
The street below had gotten busier, and the crows had retreated to a small street tree to wait things out. They were patient and ugly. On the street below a gorgeous woman, wearing a white dress with a pink sash, walked her dog while talking on her cell phone. The dog peed unceremoniously beneath a tree, before moving on down the street. He wanted to open his window and call down to her, break her stride, if only for a moment. Too much of life was predetermined, and he occasionally had wild thoughts of wanting to break out of it.this was just such an opportunity, a time to do something out of character and strange. Of course, life was strange enough if he thought about it long enough, but like most people he knew there wasn't time to deeply consider things, only move from one thing or one person to the next in a manic drive for? For something.

But he was on the phone with his mother, and she was asking again, when he would come home. He walked away from the window and lay down on his small four poster bed, in his small room, filled with late morning light, and he told her again that he'd be home in December.