1/7/04

Waiting

Personal Narrative

By: Coral Cyzewski

It’s warm inside, as the rain pours down endlessly. Inside the living room of a house, the lights reflect on the walls like the way a non-moving fire would. This creates a warm, homey, atmosphere. A small girl of four or five with shoulder length blonde hair sits on her spot on the tan, corduroy couch. She traces the corduroy lines with her finger and wears a flowered, cotton nightgown. It is one of those nights, when she is up late. It is later than her normal bedtime at least. The small girl listens to the soothing pitter-patter of the rain on the silver, aluminum roof. Her mom is doing the dishes inside the brightly lit kitchen with the white fridge and the wooden cupboards. Mixed with the sound of the rain pitter-pattering and the faucet running, is the sound of a boy around the age of 11 playing the clarinet. This is the little girl’s older brother, as he sits not far from the couch playing and cleaning his clarinet. She watches him take out the wooden reed and inspect it. Then curiously she watches him take apart the clarinet and place it in its case. The little girl especially likes the blue velvet lining the case. Time passes and her brother leaves too, retreating to his room down the hallway. The handle of the door, that the corduroy couch is facing, turns.

A relatively skinny man, measuring six feet tall walks through the doorway. The first thing she sees is a pair of dirty, white boots. This is the girl’s father and he is returning from a long night of night fishing. The little girl has never really been told exactly what goes on during night fishing, but she has an idea. She has seen the boats and the nets that the fisherman use, big nets that stretch out like sheets, only with tons and tons of holes in them. The boats are big too, but not humongous, they have a high tower where one person can sit. She puts two and two together and concludes that the fishermen and her father must drag those enormous nets using the boats that she has seen.

As her farther removes the white boots, he also removes a plastic raincoat, the color of a child’s bath time rubber ducky. He then hangs the raincoat on a maple wood coat hanger and the small girl watches as the raindrops make the decision whether to slide off the raincoat onto the floor or to remain motionless on the raincoat. Then he walks over to her small figure sitting on the couch and says “Hi, pumpkin,” as he lifts her up into his arms. He then says “You’re getting as heavy as a sack of potatoes.” While being held in his arms, she notices that there is a distinct aroma of…fish. After noticing the smell she realizes how tired she is and she longs for her father to tuck her in to bed. Together they walk into the kitchen, where the small girls mother is finishing up the dishes.

After her father greets the little girls mother, he tucks the small girl, with shoulder length blonde hair, wearing a flowered cotton nightgown, into bed. After that, the little girl’s father sets off to take a shower and rid himself of the fishy odor. This is for other people’s sake, as he is used to the smell. In her warm bed, the little girl falls asleep, perfectly content, listening to the ongoing rain.

There are no longer any more nights waiting for the girl’s father to return home from fishing. The old memories still exist though. The little girl on the couch does not exist. She has grown up somewhat. When she visits her father, she sees the raincoat and the boots. The raincoat hangs on a wooden hook by the door, only used for the occasional rainy day. The coat is still as yellow as ever and there are random, grayish marks on it. The marks look like the marks you make when you are trying to erase something, but it doesn’t quite work. The boots have been replaced. The boots that exist now are dirty, but even these boots only get out of the house occasionally. Seeing the boots and the raincoat remind the older girl of the nights waiting on the couch. Often she wants those nights back, when life was simpler, and she would sit on the corduroy couch happily waiting.