For no particular reason and in no specific order, I remember the creaking sound of my grandmother’s three-blade ceiling fan in her lemon-yellow washed room with two windows with vertical iron grills that I used to clasp with my tiny hands and look out to see the street below and the community shop selling cheap fabrics. Its afternoon.
I take a nap on the floor over the shadows of the vertical window rods that fall on the floor and go up to the walls. The shadow passes through me, I am part of the design mesh. The tired blades of the fan make small and slow rounds at the same pace. I see it moving, the creaking sound remains constant, and there’s no other sound. It's usually around 3 PM on a summer afternoon.
My grandmother is sleeping on her single bed, made of plain wood. Sturdy but ugly. The white cotton bedsheet is always tucked in tight, with no creases no folds. Her presence and weight seem to make no difference to the bed or the bedsheet. They are just intact as if they have been cursed to never move. I don't know if she is sleeping or just has her eyes closed. I stare at her to see if she is still breathing. Figuring out if someone is dead or alive is not easy, I look away and close my eyes.
There’s no one around in the house, the kitchen has been wiped clean and the door shut. The street below is empty. I can only hear the tring-tring sound of the cycle bell occasionally. No chatters and giggles of my aunts who live next door, no thumping shoe sounds of my cousins who used to run around the house. They are in school. My aunts have shut the bedroom to watch TV or to take a nap, who knows? The shutter of the community shop below has been pulled down. Lunch break. A dog is sleeping on the porch of the shop and a crow is on the ledge of the wall. This is the afternoon I dream of, this is the afternoon where great painters made great art or just took a nap.
But it is not the same anymore. The street is still empty, dogs sleeping, and neighbors taking a naps. But it’s not the same. The three-blade fan is missing and my grandmother is not breathing.
