Airshaft Luxury

He wanted it to be a new adventure,

Even as he viewed what he could afford

Was but this small room at the end of a shadowed hall.

Gazing…

He contemplated how old this grim old woman was

As she tried to hold steady the key to unlock the room for rent.

The twelve-by-twenty-foot space tugged at the imagination

Of this elderly man with a still alert mind, as he attempted to accept

Such meager comforts of necessity as all that was needed.

A narrow bed.

A rickety chair.

A window of broken shutters with but a sliver of light

Wavering through one missing shutter slat.

The gray-haired woman hobbled away,

Her cane well-trained in this no man''s land of four squeaky floors

And a rickety staircase.

He accepted he was old,

But not so old that he couldn’t accept with grace the inevitable alone time,

The acceptance that his remaining lifelong savings were enough to keep him independent for a bit longer.

Yes…

It was the all-he-could-afford-time

It was the highlight-of-the-day-time,

As the sliver of light slid through the broken shutter,

Accompanied by the airshaft of olfactory challenges,

Often making the visits, well, not the most comfortable.

Moving the chair into the slice of light

Was the aging host’s meager gesture of friendship.

Oh, how he cherished these afternoon visits for the briefest of moments,

Knowing shortly the humble man of dwindling means would fall silent of conversation

As the sliver of friendship slid from the chair

And back out into the airshaft.

His ability to create something from nothing

Rewarded his never-waning imagination well for oh so long,

So very long.

It was the dark times,

Those especially cloudy days,

When weather deprived him of his imagined companion of light

And he found himself curled up next to the shutters, listening to the rain dance about,

Making cleaner the air and preparing for the slice of company to return.

And then…

Much time passed,

Until the day arrived when silence engulfed the small room.

There no longer was the time-honored man of friendly means,

Who, after a visit from the outside,

Would fall quiet,

Very quiet,

When the light’s receding glimmer

Prepared to leave.

His room of many years remained vacant

Until the wrecking ball made room for another

Unimaginative high-rise monument of progress.