Found Painting......... Reds, Lots of Reds

This is the painting I found at Jimmies. This is the one that was in the back, away from the others.

I am standing in my own doorway taking off memories, not of exact events or people, but memories like puffs of smoke from the stacks. Wispy creaking non-formed puffs of ghost feelings. Undressing a past that was of perception and not exactly reality. Even this picture is slightly different than I remember it, and yet it is my illusion I live from. This picture is like the San Francisco skyline but not exactly in the way I remember it. I live from deep inside my mind where not even reality can penetrate.

My grandmother, on my mothers side, had a dresser with a big round mirror and draws on the side. She always said, "Don't open those drawers." About a year after her death, I stood in front of that dresser. I put my hand on the drawer knob. I was going to open the drawer. I stood there feeling a slight terror, a five year old's terror. What if she comes in? I just let myself feel it. I stood there in that feeling. What if she comes in! Don't open the drawers! You know you are not supposed to!

Her room was like Junkie Jimmies. Short on light and full of things. The shades over the window glowed with the afternoon light it did not let in. Her tall dresser with the little nook for shoes underneath and the picture of Jesus praying on a blue rock watched. It was a square place where the dust was quiet.

My hand was on the knob, I pulled on the drawer. She is dead. She can not swing open the door and appear. There can not be the sudden pie shaped flow of light from that door. No light will come and find me doing something I was told not to do. She can not open that door. She is dead. Gone. Dead. Not here. Dead. Not here. I open the drawer.

Nothing happens.

It is just a drawer with somethings in it. A little prayer book, a fancy brush. Hankies. Hair clips in a hard plastic box. It is just a drawer.

I shut it. I open it. I shut it. I open it. I am waiting for the fear of being discovered to go away.

I am daring her to appear.