Pictures in the Attic

Pictures in the Attic

Rose Do you feel the shadows lurking beneath your skin when you lay down to sleep? I feel them every night. Sometimes petrified that it’s because I’ve become an imitation. Could that be it?

Isabella I don’t know; maybe you just gave up.

Rose Is that what you think?

Isabella To believe that darkness can hide mistakes helps us survive regardless of them.

Rose A sham to pretend that eternity matters to someone who hasn’t the faintest idea where they will find the resources to survive from day to day.

Isabella And why do you walk with a smile on your face when everything around you is all coming down?

Rose I don’t know.

Isabella It is because love is dying and life is shrinking.

Rose Do you think I’m dead?

Isabella Sometimes.

Rose We are only human Izzy. We cannot bear boredom, to feel nothing and survive it. That is why relationships end.

Isabella No, Rose. That is why hedonism prevails. We feel the end closer each day and fathom that we were meant for more than what we have – and that mask you are wearing – take it off!

Rose Why am I fake?

Isabella Because I choose not to live in a world where I am bought and sold every day to greed; I create my own world where I can be free.

Rose And how is your world different from mine?

Isabella You don’t see past the anger you feel for a world that you believe has failed you. So you criticize a reality you cannot change but in the end accept it as the only way. When you do not find answers in the light you resent God for the promises you claim he made. You look for a villain to blame for all the wrong; as if life was ever meant to be easy with hardships merely being malfunctions.

Rose How can you discard reality with such ease? You are selfish. You live with no regard for authority. How can you care only about pleasure and not consider more meaningful things in life?

Isabella Pleasure has nothing to do with it – we come into a world that has no meaning. We provide it. I amuse myself with the beauty because it is so rare. I devour delight because it comes in drops and not in a gush. I know life is a tragedy waiting to happen moment by moment. I don’t dwell on the things I cannot change. I create things that will make my brief stay meaningful. May I be fortunate enough to meet someone who feels the same way.

Rose I put my faith in beauty too Isabella; and in kindness – We are fighting for the same mark.

Isabella You see my world and condemn it. You resent me for choosing my path over the vision of your daily death.

Rose How did we get here?

Isabella We grew up in a lie.

Rose You mean a dream that was doomed from the start.

Isabella Maybe.

Rose Would you ever let me into your world?

Isabella Let you in? I cannot imagine one without you in it.

Rose Sometimes I think you’ re right about me being dead.

Isabella No Rose, that’s the one thing I’m always wrong about.