The
nine by eight foot bedroom was just as seventeen year old Clarisse McClellan
had left it before setting out for her dreadfully mundane school day. That morning, the golden autumn sunlight
illuminated the room dazzling the little black-eyed susans on the peeling
wallpaper to life. Waking that morning,
Clarisse had thrust open the bright yellow gingham curtains that veiled her
only bedroom window.
Full of excitement for
the new day’s adventure, Clarisse quickly and sloppily pulled her beloved
patchwork quilt up over her bed. Lost in
the moment, Clarisse recalled her sixth birthday when Grandma McClellan had
presented her with this magnificent masterpiece. Clarisse examined the hundreds of multi-colored
diamond shapes running her finger over intricately hand-stitched fabrics that
her grandmother had woven into together into a work of art. Fretting she would be late for school,
Clarisse grabbed her charcoal grey pea-coat and ran out the door.
Stepping into the room, Montag
could not believe she was really gone. Amidst
the ghostly silence, Montag imagined he heard the conversations and laughter of
the McClelland family downstairs. Softly,
beneath the resonance of their voices, Montag conjured the melody of their
exotic jazz records. A faint wisp of strawberries
and apricots, Clarisse’s favorite perfume, still pervaded the space. Tripping over Clarisse’s muddy, worn out, tan
leather hiking boots that she had haphazardly left in the door way, Montag
moved to Clarisse’s dresser on his right.
Clarisse’s long blonde hair lingered in her hairbrush that lay beside a mason
jar full of dandelions that she had recently picked on one her walks.
Just then, something very
peculiar caught Montag’s attention.
Along the adjacent wall beside the window, sat Clarisse’s bookshelf. Montag hadn’t seen one of those since he was a
small child. While Montag suspected that Clarisse was no stranger to books,
this shelf contained none. Instead, each
shelf was crammed with treasures that Clarisse had collected over the
years. Small seashells, colorful rocks,
pressed flowers, autumn leaves, a pigeon feather, and other natural artifacts
filled one shelf. The second shelf
displayed small trinkets…photos, ticket stubs, ancient coins, post-cards, and
knickknacks from long forgotten places like Broadway, Miami Beach, and a place
called the Grand Canyon. Montag noticed
a strange statue of a mint green woman holding some kind of torch. He wondered what kind of place that might be
from. The last shelf held Clarisse’s
wicker knitting basket with her copper needles still entwined in a sky blue ball
of yarn. Montag passed the baby-soft azure
fleece through his fingers as he studied the scarf Clarisse was almost finished
knitting.
Atop the bookshelf stood
a lavender crystal vase exploding with dried pink roses. Montag found himself leaning his nose into
the bouquet searching for the traces of the honey-like aroma that once burst
out from these fragile fossils of life that once was. Beside the vase, Clarisse had left her
magnifying glass. Montag remembered
Clarisse chatting on and on about how looking at the world close up and
personal was like having magical vision.
He recalled the icy touch of her delicate long finger touching the
center of his sweaty forehead.
“This is your third eye,
Montag.”
“Now, I’m just fine with
the two good eyes I already have, Miss McClellan,” he stodgily responded.
He never did understand all of her ramblings.
There, next to the
mysterious lens, Montag then discovered Clarisse’s sketchpad. He flipped through the pages of life-like portraits
of her family members, scenes of nature outside the city, towering trees, close-ups
of flowers, personified cartoon animals, fairies, gnomes, and other fancies of
Clarisse’s imagination. Montag swallowed
hard when he turned the page to a sketch of a jovial looking man’s face superimposed
on the moon’s craters. With an unfathomable tear in his eye, Montag remembered
the night he walked home with Clarisse. Her
blonde hair and white frock seemed to glow from within in the light of the
full-moon. With her usual bold defiance, Clarisse encouraged Montag to look at
the moon and stars for perhaps the first time ever. He chuckled out loud as he recalled her
outlining the face of the man in the moon.
“Can’t you see his two dark eyes there Montag?” she questioned. The warm, salty tear rolled down Montag’s
scruffy cheek as he closed the notebook.
Carefully placing the
sketch pad in his bag, Montag stepped back and noticed the curious images that
Clarisse had thumbtacked to her wall. A
dark-skinned woman dressed in unfamiliar fashions gazed seductively back at
Montag. Billie Holiday, Montag read
along the bottom of the poster. Clarisse
had juxtaposed a postcard of something called an “Eiffel Tower” next to Ms.
Holiday. Montag could not begin to image
the purpose of such bizarre architecture.
Maybe it was some kind of moon tower? Beneath the tower postcard, Clarisse had
tacked a four by six inch replication of a painting of an olive-skinned, long
dark-haired, pristine woman. The painted
lady stared straight at Montag with her soft smile and knowing hazel eyes. Sitting proudly in her chair with her hands
folded in her lap, the woman seemed content, tranquil even, yet the desolate
landscape behind the woman appeared foreboding in some way. Time stopped around Montag as he become lost
in the woman’s motherly eyes.
A chill breeze brought Montag
back to the situation at hand. The hairs
on the back of his neck stood up. Turning
toward the window, Montag noticed that Clarisse had scribble some words in
pencil beside her bed. Montag stepped
over the denim dungarees that were balled on the sunflower yellow, oval-shaped
braided wool rug and sat down on Clarisse’s bed. The old mattress sagged and the rusty springs
squeaked with Montag’s weight.
Carefully, Montag moved the oil-fueled hurricane reading lamp from
Clarisse’s nightstand to the floor.
Montag leaned in and read the words that Clarisse had penciled on her
wall. He could hear her harmonic voice
reading the words:
I believe in you my soul,
the other I am must not abase itself to you,
And you must not be
abased to the other.
Loaf with me on the
grass, loose the stop from your throat,
Not words, not music or
rhyme I want, not custom or lecture, not even the best,
Only the lull I like, the
hum of your valvéd voice.
Pausing for a moment, Montag reflected on the powerful
words. He longed to loaf with his
free-spirited friend Clarisse on the grass one more time.
A
frigid gust of wind now blew through the open window bringing goosebumps to
Montag’s leathery skin. Getting up to close the window, Montag moved around to
the other side of the bed. Ready to give
up his search through Clarisse’s remaining possessions, Montag stubbed his toe
on something protruding from under her bed.
Plopping himself on the floor to coddle his throbbing toe, Montag
finally found what he had come for.
Just
behind the white lacy bed skirt, Clarisse had tucked away her most treasured
contraband. Picking up the book on the
top of the pile, Montag ran his index finger over the embossed gold letters “William
Shakespeare.” Opening the maroon-colored book, Montag inhaled the familiar
scent of the yellowed pages. Shakespeare’s
words were still so difficult for him to comprehend, yet Montag could sense the
emotion behind them.
From forth the fatal
loins of these two foes,
A pair of star-crossed
lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured
piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury
their parents’ strife.
Montag felt his heart sink to the pit of his stomach as
he thought of Clarisse’s tragic fate.
While
he wished he could stay in this magical wonderland for a while longer, Montag knew
the danger that every minute there brought to him. He hastily packed the rustic hard-covered
books in his army green, canvas knapsack.
The Shakespeare play, Thoreau’s Walden,
The Poetry of John Keats, and Gulliver’s Travels would be his to
indulge in during his journey after he escaped the city.
With
one last look at the maple rocking chair in the corner of Clarisse’s room,
Montag closed the wooden door and exited.
Filling his chest with a deep slow breath, pulling his abdomen upward, fully
expanding his lungs, Montag ceremoniously placed his hand on the scaly, white
chipping paint on the door. After
standing there for a minute longer, Montag made his way across the hard-wood
floors and out of the McClellan’s abandoned red-brick house forever.
