A Picture and a Story

The following is a little story I made up about Wyeth's The Wind from the Sea. 

     So the window had been left open after all. There had been some whispering earlier at dawn, when the sky was soft and pink, as to whether it was such a good idea. “What if it rains, Lizzie?” “There’s hardly any chance of that. Come.”

     The bag was filled to the top: fresh, white towels and paisley bathing trunks—there were big hats and dark glasses, containers with cheese, with grapes, with chocolate cookies, the French ones avec Le Petit Ecolier. A big umbrella came towering from the bottom, too.

     “Are you sure about the window, Lizzie?”

     “Of course I am. Come.”

     Off they went, with a flicker of the engine, motoring along: ochre fields, charcoal houses, an incessant row of tall, rustic pines.

     And the window had been left open after all. Wide open, like a face when it yawns, like a soul left ajar.

     The wind floods into the room with a roar, rousing the curtains. It sends them splashing, pondering.

     Hours pass, pass, pass, and the house remains calm, chill; a strange sense of sleep reins over the house—drowsiness drifts to slumber.

     The hours pass, one after the other.

     The motor. The car clattering home. The ochre, the pines, the charcoal houses.

     “I told you it wouldn’t rain. But shut it now. There’s something of a draft.”

     And with the bag set on the floor, the window was shut.