Erase Me

I

The old woman’s footsteps were light as she journeyed slowly down the hall. A bittersweet sound swept through the air and it pained her to have to put an end to it. But some things have to be done when you don’t want to do them and there are other things you want to do but you can’t. This was an example of both for the old woman.

I flinched at the creak of the door and looked over to see my great-grandmother: Carol Sangster, you might have heard of her if you were over ninety years old and dared to remember.

I saw the look on her face, the disappointment etched into her deep wrinkles. I detected the frustration in her tired eyes. She was five years past a hundred and had no patience for any-thing that disturbed her.

I was holding my guitar, my fingers still on the strings, poised to play. I slowly and stealthily slid my notebook and pencil off of the low-sitting table and onto the floor.

“Your awful voice woke me up,” she told me with sadness woven into her tone. I knew she didn’t mean to insult me like that. Her thinking was that maybe if she kept telling me I couldn’t sing, I would start to believe it and stop risking my life for something so meaningless. Still, I dropped my head and pretended to be hurt by this.

My great-grandmother glanced at the walls of my room. They were covered to the point where you couldn’t even see the dull, white paint with newspaper articles from around ninety years ago. There were some articles of the anti-music act but mostly articles of the old woman, Carol Sangster herself, singing her heart out on stages all over the country as a young girl no more than my age, fifteen years.

These newspapers tacked onto the wall were a blast from the past that she hated having to face. That was a time of hope and promise, a time when she thought she could rule the world with her voice. But now that time was long gone and long forgotten, never to be salvaged.

“Aria,” she began, sternly like the parental figure she tried to pose as. In truth we were just two people generations apart looking out for each other. She had over one hundred years of life experience and I still had good eyesight. It worked out and we were the only family either of us had left so neither of us really had a choice. “Perhaps you should take those newspaper articles down. It darkens the room too much. Perhaps we could paint the walls a nice happy yellow.”

I pretended to take to the idea. “Yes, and we can make a border on the top of orange music notes.”

Her counterfeit smile fell. “Not unless you want me to watch you get executed in town square,” she spat as she hobbled out of the room on her cane.