There I was with a pair of scissor in my hand. How strange! I had decided not to do it. But again, how could I not do it? Generations of women had done it before me. My mother with her mother and my grandmother with her mother. It would have been sacrilegious not to do it. I thought about all those little white envelopes in the desk drawer. Some turned yellow with exposure to time. All marked with a fading inscription on the cover.
Names. First names. Just names. People I had never met. People only found in black and white photographs.
I was a boy and that was women’s stuff! But again! I was the only one who could do it, thus what was all the fuss? It’s a woman’s job. It’s always a woman’s job. It’s a woman’s job because women are always the ones left behind. With their pain in the haunted wardrobes. With their tears kept unlocked in the chamber of memories. And now, it was my lot.
That morning, I took my courage in both hands and slipped a pair of scissors in my right pocket. It was a beautiful sunny day in August, and the radio played Bridge over troubled waters. Birds were singing and swinging like kites in the sky. There was nothing solemn about that day. Only me. Me and no one else. No one other than me. Children were laughing in the park. A middle-age man in shorts had run around the pond, and then again, around and around. How strange! I felt sick. There was no air in this room without windows…
Too much light in that room! No windows, but too much light. The table was shining like a silver spoon.
She had told me to do it. She had told me other things that I had not done. Why should I do this one? I had taken a small white envelope. Of the same capacity as the other ones. Same format. Easy to pile with the others and encircled with a blue ribbon. My left pocket. It was in my left pocket now. My fingers felt the folded paper.
Fragment. Magnifying glass effect. No movement. A day with no breeze. The light. Too much light in this room. And a drizzle now. Where did that drizzle come from? No movement. My left hand left my pocket and exchanged the contents with my right hand. Silence. No movement. But there it was. My right hand slowly drew aside from my hip. A magnet. Attraction. My arm floating in the air. Above. Touch. One more time touching. My fingers unfolded and surfaced it…
I shivered. Cold! Frozen. It was frozen. What a terrible impression. The drizzle disappeared. I should not have done it. Now the coldness will stay with me forever! I was freezing. It was a sunny day in August. Why was I freezing now? Quick now. Finishing quickly. Fleeing away from that strange sensation. The last moments of face to face.
My left hand called the right one. Than it stopped. The color. The color surprised me. It was white of course, but the root was black, or may be brown? I was shocked. All my life I had thought that it was gold, with flames shining in the sun. I had dreamt of this sandy color. I had drawn that honey color in my first pictures, but now, it was other. Everything was so strange! The other. The unknown. Than it struck me. The other envelopes! The color of the others. They were not honey. They were not sand. They were not gold. Just brown, plain chestnut or black. Then, I remembered the pictures. The first ones. The ones before my coming… The light! Too much light. Too many details for one sunny day in August. Bridge over troubled waters. The light and no windows. These sent me back to the others, more ancient. Or was it the others who called this one back to them? Darkness. No more light. I reached the light and turned it down. Blackness. Darkness. Lightless. By now the fear; only the fear. And the drizzle again. The drizzle turning foggy. And the light! So much light now. Inside. Inside light. A chain of events, unreeling my past. Far away. Far back. But above the light, a perfume. My mother perfume. A specific fragrance that lead a child to his mother’s breast.
I turned the light on…
* * *
I did it! Yes I did it. I slipped it in the envelope and then I left the room with only one brief glance to the funeral director. And I flew away to add the envelop to the others with a new name. My mother’s name…
Ever since, I have always been traveled with all of them. Yes, all of them! Why not? There are One. They are All of them, and I am part of them. One day, I shall ask my son or daughter, or friend to do the same. We will close the door together. We will unveil the pile of yellow envelopes. We will open all of them and compare their hair with ours!
