Am I Even a Curtain?
by Ziaf Ronaghi ︎︎︎The light green curtain lives in the tiny study room at a window facing south. She is translucent and so, is ridiculed by the other curtains in the house, especially the ones in the bedroom, who block light to perfection.
Even the window of the study room, supposedly her companion, told her once in the middle of an argument:
“Who are you even? I mean what’s the difference between you and me? You let in almost the same amount of light as I do. One can see through you almost as clearly as through me. You’re so redundant. Are you even a curtain?”
You can imagine what gloomy existence the light green curtain leads.
Just behind her, on the windowsill, there is a framed picture of an old couple, the grandparents of the girl living in the apartment. And I can’t tell you how happy she feels every day when she goes to the study room, sits at the desk, and sees the picture through the translucent light green curtain.
She lost her grandfather a few years ago, but all this time, she and her family have hidden the truth from her grandmother, who suffers from dementia and her advanced arthritis has basically pinned her to her bed. They only tell her that her husband is away on a trip, every time that she asks about him. The dementia helps them lie, I guess. Or maybe, the same way that they are trying to keep the truth of her husband’s death away from her, she is keeping the truth of her knowing that they are lying away from them. Who knows.
In any case, I can’t put it into words how much the girl loves the translucent light green curtain of the study room. I hope that she will, at some point, tell that sorrowful curtain how dearly she loves her.