The Cobweb

Yet another exercise from the fiction workshop.

Vladimir woke early and went to bed late. It had been this way for some time, he was growing very old and now it seemed that the hours ticked away like seconds, the sun rising and setting in the time it took him to drink a cup of coffee. The recent passing of his wife, Katerina, had only made him feel even older, and more tired. He remembered her clearly. Her soft mouth, her auburn hair that had grown golden as the radiance of her youth slowly emptied out of her body. He knew what she looked like in those final days, but whenever he thought of her, or heard her name, he always remembered her as the young woman he married nearly fifty years ago. For him, she would never be the frail and broken person whose hand he had clutched as the nurses shut off the life support. He could barely even remember that day.

 

Presently he was looking out of his frosted window at the white expanse in his backyard. The snow from last night had covered the footprints and animal tracks that had been there the evening before. Vladimir rarely left his house anymore; none of the footprints were his. He sipped a cup of black coffee and thoughtlessly watched the gentle wind blow the dark and monochrome clouds above the tops of the frosted trees. If only Katerina were here to share this with me. He thought.

 

His wife had appreciated aesthetics in a way no one else did. She always had an eye for beautiful things. She could look at a painting for half an hour and not be satisfied. Vladimir loved to listen to her talk about light and darkness, color and shape. The way one thing would look juxtaposed against another. Winter was her favorite season.

 

Vladimir waddled about and settled into his favorite easy chair, where he promptly fell asleep.

 

Cold. Cold cold cold. A figure. A man? No, a woman. His wife? No, too tall to be his wife, who could this be?

 

“Vladimir.”

 

“Yes?”

“Vladimir.”

 

This voice, who does it belong to? It sounds so familiar…

 

“VLADIMIR”

 

The old man woke with a start. The face of his mother burned into the back of his eyelids. He looked around his living room, shaken. His mother had died when he was twelve.

 

It had grown dark outside. He turned on the lamp in the corner of the room and stood up. He was not hungry; he was not tired, what was there to do? There was a bottle of wine in the kitchen, and Vladimir decided that he needed a drink.

 

Glass and bottle in hands, Vladimir returned to his easy chair, read the newspaper, and drank until the bottle was empty. Warm sleepiness washed over him as finished his last sip and returned the newspaper to the end table. His eyes settled on a cobweb in the near corner of the room. How strange it was that this cobweb was here so late in the year! He smiled, thinking of his wife, turned off the light and fell asleep. He did not wake up.