Loose Socks

I can smell the over-ripened bananas.

The windows are open. From the outside one can hear her. There she is in the window, spreading her knife across the table, packing brown bags full to the brim, and whistling over her works. Whistling and smiling she knows they will grow to be happy.

I can see the way they are packed so tightly.

She walks away twinkling, being done, things packed tightly away in brown paper bags. Soon they are off to school, and over and over the work she still whistles. Glittering and Pounding away.

I can hear the crumpling of paper bags and doors that slam against the frame.

But what is that smell?

That awful, awful smell.

She pauses and the quickly, up the stairs she goes, climbing higher and higher as the air gets thin, faster and faster. What is that smell? And through a door, a giant door, lay the smallest of all, covered in blankets, warmly snuggled in the crib, there's a cold and rotting baby.

Oh it's only that, she says.