Gemini Awry

Where on earth were those EMS people? Surely they should have been here with an ambulance by now! They were always so good about being around when no one needed them. Just like the cops. And now after more than a half-hour they are still not here! She exchanged one thought for another but there was nothing she could think about that didn't make her desperate and so she cried some more.

It was almost fitting that death came in this room, even though the sofa where she had taken her last breath would never feel quite the same again. Even now Pia fidgeted against its soft silk covering as if it were sandpaper rubbing against an open wound. Tia had loved this elegant room with the high gold leaf ceiling that still served as the parlor it had been in the days when they were young and their parents were still alive. The stately townhouse that faced Grammercy Park had been the only home the two sisters had ever known.

Memories of a lifetime abounded, although there were never really any good ones. There were only those that weren't as bad as others. Still they lingered like ghosts, trapped forever in the ether of the air and behind the tapestried walls. Pain. Joy. Laughter. Tears. How had sixty years slipped by so quickly, so imperceptibly, like sand sifting through an hourglass?

Time. How much was left for her? She dabbed nervously at her eyes with a Kleenex. Straining her neck like a tortoise stretching from its shell, she turned toward the pillared fireplace in the far corner of the room in an effort to see the porcelain clock on its mantle. She could not have said why suddenly knowing what time it was could have altered anything about her present state. Anyway, it was a useless vagary. The hands of the clock were obscured by the darkness. She guessed it to be about 1 AM.