Everyday Stories #25

Mrs Starfish

I am not the same person who started this sentence

I’m not the same person who started this sentence. I’m already different now.

The house looks like a castle. Whitest. Walls of sugar. The windows are pieces of sky. Roses everywhere. Gentle, discreet, timid roses. The doorbell is gilded, a little worn by time. I press the button and the button sinks softly, it seems to lower itself and I don’t hear any sound coming from inside. The maid comes to open me. Agnes is her name. If you wish, you can leave your coat here. Follow me. Mrs Starfish is waiting for you.

“I’m not the same person who started this sentence”: Mrs Starfish had it written on her gravestone. She’s not dead yet. Or maybe she is, and she remedied it, somehow. Agnes and I walk quietly. The curtains are red. On the walls the portraits of the ancestors. They are not the ancestors, Agnes says, and hurries her pace.

Down the hall, after a wooden and glass door, in a large room that smells of fir trees, sitting in a wicker chair, her back perfectly straight, a smile that resembles wine, eyes like two silver charms, Mrs Starfish is waiting for me.

We remain silent. Outside, planes drop bombs. Music fashions change. Someone invents the telegraph. Finches adapt to the new world, their feathers are fiery red. Pirates, just landed at the small harbor, draw the treasure map. Mrs Starfish sighs. Every time she sighs, a truth is no longer such and dies, and another truth is born. Her eyes are green now, and her smile is lemon and water. You’re not convinced, are you?

No, I’m not convinced. I arrived here with a firm step, and instead everything is swaying like on a boat in a storm. The singing of my heart is no longer so intoned, so vibrant with resolve. Changing your life. Changing it effortlessly, by magic. To remedy one of your mistakes. To go back and be able to choose a different path. To be a different self. Mrs Starfish can do this, for the benefit of anyone who finds the path leading to her home. She asks for nothing in return.

There is no rush, says Mrs Starfish. She offers me orange tea and small animal cookies. I understand you, she continues. Our mistakes are all already excused. Because we have not chosen to be born, because it’s life that constantly forces us to make decisions. And instead you’re here asking me to give you the opportunity to change what you have already chosen. Nobody forces you to do that. If you were wrong, the fault would be yours alone. Another cookie?

Is there a loophole? I ask. The house is on a hill. Not too far from the sea. Mrs Starfish stands up. She’s taller than me, or maybe she’s floating on a span from the ground, over the blue light coming in through the window. There is, but you can risk not grasping it. Because it is as elusive as a hare. You can continue to choose. You can forgive. Until you realize that every other self is in your present. That an instant of life has the same meaning as a whole life.

Agnes walks me down the hallway toward the exit. I pause in front of a portrait. It’s you, Agnes tells me. She looks annoyed. She anticipates my questions. She probably has to explain the same lesson to everyone. It’s you when you got here. It belongs to a parallel life now. So you have a hard time recognizing yourself. Don’t worry, you haven’t lost anything, you haven’t forgotten anything. It’s just a different way of looking at things.

I meet Mrs Starfish again along the path. Her eyes are my eyes. Her smile is a basket of berries. I meet Mrs Starfish again along the path. And again I meet her, finally, at the end of this sentence.

Thanks to Trisha Traughber for this inspirational prompt:

Another prompt: