The Whale, Chapter 1

a novel in verse for nanowrimo

Photo by anthony maw on Unsplash

“Getting old is getting old,” she said
To herself as she got out of bed.
It was the day before her birthday
And the day after Halloween,
The morning dark and dim and fragrant
With stale leaves and the after-odor
Of trick-or-treaters and candy wrappers.
 
Helga Caruthers slid her tired old feet
Out from under a tangle of bedsheet
And onto the cold hardwood floor
Of her bedroom. “Gotten old,” she said
Out loud to the silence of the house.
“Or is it ‘Got Old’?” she said again.
“Old as dirt, at any rate,” she said.
 
Helga was rounding out her eighty-fourth year
Under heaven and feeling increasingly unclear
About what she should do with her life
Three years now after the entire family,
Son and daughter with spouses and children
And children’s children had gathered round
The hospice bed and said their goodbyes

To Joseph Caruthers, Helga’s man
Of sixty years and happy head of the clan.
What a moment that had been,
The death bed placed in the living room —
Such a juxtaposition — and the generations
Toasting Joe with his favorite whisky
As his soul hesitated, then ambled on.

Now Helga, still bleary with sleep,
Ambled through that same room, deep
In just-awakened thought and semi-dread
To face the day and its emerging troubles.
She made her way to the front door
And opened it to the light of the dawn
To check for tricks leftover in the street

And the dregs of treats and a barking dog,
Clouds on the horizon with a hint of fog
Dispersing as the sunrise claimed the morning
For beauty despite the neighbors’
Constantly overflowing garbage can
And a faint but persistent malodor
Carried on the breezes of autumn.

The first of November, and strangely warm,
Thought Helga as an idea began to form
Within the well of hope deep in her mind.
She turned back inside to make coffee
And have a piece of chocolate, her morning
Ritual to read the message on the wrapper:
“This is the first day of the rest of your life.”

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