Marbles, Nails and Tattered Shoes
(Fiction)
Marbles were everywhere, rainbows of color rolled across the smooth kitchen counter. While my grandpa was in the hospital I had gone to his house to clean and keep an eye on things. While reaching to put a cup into the kitchen cupboard my elbow brushed into a hard object causing a crash to follow. The crash was a glass full of marbles that were now fanned out and glistening like gems upon the kitchen counter. I wondered why grandpa had an old, dusty jar of marbles that I had never noticed before. One big, bright, blue marble rolled until it stopped against a pile of nails. The nails were piled haphazardly as if grandpa had laid them down after forgetting about a project. I wondered what the project must have been. One of the nails teetered on the counter's edge then fell into an old shoe. There was only one shoe on the floor and it had a ragged hole where the toe would have been and where the nail entered. I knelt down to get a better look and wondered where the other shoe was. While near the floor I heard a noise, a mouse perhaps, so I looked across the floor and saw a dusty picture frame leaning against the living room wall. Covered in shrink wrapped plastic it still had the display picture in it and I wondered where the family picture was. I stood up and walked toward the dirty object to pick it up. In the floor where the frame had been was a dusty piece of folded paper. Above the frame and paper was grandpa's desk, and I now knew that the items had fallen off the edge. I gently unfolded the creases and looked at my grandpa’s jagged writing. The paper read, I wonder why you never come and see me anymore. I am lonely everyday and could use help with my many projects around the house. Have you forgotten how we played marbles together when you were little? I still have the marbles. I look at them everyday when I make my coffee. Did you forget about those shoes you gave me for Christmas one year? I wore them out. I lost one, but I keep the other holey one to remember when you were young. The unfinished letter stopped there as if grandpa had forgotten what he was doing, and he probably did since he had begun to suffer from dementia. Grandpa wasn't the only one who had forgotten important things. I immediately stopped cleaning, let the dish water out of the sink and locked up the old house. I was heading to the hospital. The house didn't need me, but grandpa did.