GOLDEN SHOW

Buzzed the door early in the morning. It didn't open for quite a while, I even thought nobody was home. Then I recognized the voice inside and heard keys jingling and the door lock being opened. Everything in the apartment looked pretty familiar and well-lit, but there wasn't much space. Right away she offered me a seat and started scurrying about the room. It looked as though there was more of her. Here she took out an album with old "Decorative Art" magazine scraps and turned on the radio, while simultaneously showing me her newly bloomed cactus. And there she was digging through her purse, then moved the table while putting coffee beans into the grinder. I was growing a bit tired of watching all her incarnations, so I took my mind off completely and gazed upon a book rack in front of the chair. It was as big as the wall behind it and filled with books. Right before the books, under the glass, was a collection of all sorts of thingies. On the left there was a ceramic figurine, a family photo, a Buddhist mandala, a Van Gogh's "The Starry Night" magazine scrap, an orange horse statuette, a 3x4 black-and-white photo, an immortelle, an icon of the Virgin Mary, a jubilee postcard; a part of the framed drawing of a straw hat I gave her as a present, crammed among sun-bleached photos of her youth, church candles and a tiny 2002 calendar; a large sketch of field flowers, a bronze sconce, a signed drawing I made as a kid, having been honorably put in the foreground, a synthetic pink tape, a Faberge-like sculpture, a dollar note and a little jar with oils… A wall clock broke my gaze - I noticed I felt anxious and started counting in my mind: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 … 17, 31, 53 … 77, 80 … 100. She slowed down and became more static, there was less of her. At that point, I got scared that the number of her incarnations might become negative and, in order to keep myself not thinking about it, I slowly started to head out. Very soon she walked me to the door, and we said goodbye a few times. I promised to visit her more often and left through a long corridor.