America

America

A few fat, black houseflies dart in and out and back again, circling the plates of some previous day’s food. Yesterday’s meal now rots and smells foul. This is all that remains of the once fancy and proper dining room table’s adornment. I remember when it was set so prettily with fine china plates, crystal glasses, and shiny knives and forks. A table so fine and perfect, I was mostly scared to even sit down at it for fear I might break something—or make a mess.

I was never comfortable or believing in the pretty and fancy and shiny, but to see the fine table in this state guts me.

A wall of small-paned windows makes a cozy corner, most of its glass now shattered shards.

The yard outside the windows is dead with weeds and dust.

In the distance, the river that ran through this place has shriveled to a muddy trickle, exposing her long-hidden rocks and stones—and some old car parts. An old, rusty bicycle sticks out of the mud, exposing some long-lost boyhood adventure—or crime. The crimes of boyhood were so much simpler than the modern-day crimes I now suffer and commit.

Though, in the moment, the ramifications of my boyhood seemed terrifying and consequential.

I ponder—am I exposed to this barren wasteland now simply because I never looked for or expected much more? Because I never stood up and demanded more? As the other boys of that time and place lined up for college and prepared for greatness, it was always my perceived place to lag behind and wait for the walls to crumble in and onto themselves.

There was a time—I can still find it in the back of my mind—when it was all so grand: the china, the silver spoons, the streams full of frogs and fish and life. There were few limits to what one could do or dare to dream.

I look back now on our abandoned palace and confess to myself that I never expected any of it to last.

A cold wind whistles softly through the broken house, kicking up little devils of dust and some forgotten papers from a cupboard. I wonder what was abandoned first—our dreams or our courage. I sat right here and watched the collapse. I can take no solace in my indifference; I was one of the ones who let it happen. I was one of the generation who accepted weakness and greed and cowardice and fear as stewardship of the once fine home. It was me and mine who watched it all fall.