Sitting Room

The worst thing about visiting
the Old Lady in the Sitting Room
was that there was no air there.
You could not breathe could not
do anything at all in fact in
that room. The Old Lady had made
that clear when we were very
young. We were not to twitch or
jump or shout in the Sitting Room.
She told us to do nothing to
stay there still and silent.
You were could not even really
sit in the Sitting Room not
properly because the Old Lady
had very old ornate chairs with
brown velvet cushions filled by
stale puffs of dead air and she
didn't like the cushions to be
deformed. So we sat on the very edge
uncomfortable on the ends of the shining
brown velvet, the same thick shimmering
brown as the curtains that stopped the
air from getting in and disturbing the room.
The Old Lady was sickly drooping velvet too
slow cascade of old dresses and rolls of skin.

Sitting Room

We knew that there was a tin of hard old
sweets but they were not for eating we would
not even try because they too had flowed
together into one inedible mass. There
was a piano in the Sitting Room but
the Old Lady never played it. She
played the same stories for us instead,
about all the treasures she kept sunk in
this airless room the painted figurines
trophies she had pulled down with her
over the years. White ceramic dogs standing
guard with dripping black eyes poorly
painted by mournful hands pale little
lords bowing to so many shepherdesses
dancers frozen and brittle lumbered
with painful ornate hair small
porcelain grotesques all. The Old
Lady's favourite tune was to remind
us never to touch these figures for
they were precious so she sang out
each one she claimed from all around
the world antiques worth a small fortune
that would pass on if she ever died.
If we were very good children the
Old Lady in the Sitting Room said
as if she was promising us a great
treat perhaps we would inherit one
treasure just one to keep on our own
dead piano or shelf when we were old
and perched somewhere dark and airless.

Sitting Room

Even then we never understood why we
were supposed to want any of these
untouchable things but if I had one
I always thought if I could resist
breaking it I would dress the tortured
porcelain up for a nice holiday. Something
colourful and fun – a broad summer hat
perhaps or a whole beach set or a space suit
anything that would make it feel like we
were somewhere we could breathe.