Summit School - Flame Yearbook (St Paul, MN)

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AFTERMATH HE pleasant scent of flowers perfumed the room and drifted up my nose, a fitting greeting for the day after my sister's wedding. I yawned wide, filling my lungs with the sweet fragrance, then with a stretch I found the piece of wedding cake under my pillow. The room was dark with the shades drawn, and the wind through the open window made the curtains blow, I got up to close the window and then looked around me. There was the empty wedding dress thrown on the other bed, its train in a lump on the floor. Quite a change had come over it since yesterday when it had been pressed and pampered like a baby, then carefully enfolded in a white sheet awaiting its debut. The shoes, too, were deserted in front of the chair in the exact place where they had been hurriedly taken off. Beside them in a long box were the remains of the two bou- quets, now completely dead, in no way showing their past beauty. Yes, that shriveled up, white object was the bride's bouquet that I had caught and clutched as if my life depended on it. I started down to get my breakfast but stopped at the head of the stairs recalling the feeling we three had had on that very spot, not twenty-four hours before, as we heard the opening chorus of Lohengrin. Would I ever be able to start down the stairs without thinking of that? The banisters were still decked with greenery, and, as I went down, the fragrance of the Howers became stronger and stronger. At the bottom of the stairs the two wide ribbons that had served as the aisle lay in disorder on the floor, mixing with the rice which made a path to the front door, There was not a piece of furniture downstairs. For the first time the house appeared to be really too big for us, like an empty assembly hall. There was such a queer feeling of space all around it. The two white pillar-like candlesticks at one end were the only furnishings in the living room. The flowers draped on the white pillars and mantel still looked fresh. I sat on the floor remembering all the details of the last evening. Was it true- could the house in one moment have been so full of people and excitement, and then in the next be so barren of everything? Could this wedding for which we had worked and planned so long suddenly be completely over? Had it come and gone? The proof was all around me: cigarette butts, a lost earring, crumbs of cake on the floor- I looked in the dining room, there was the wedding cake on the side table with several slices out of it. It wasn't just a beautiful showpiece in Ramaley's window, but it was ours, it belonged in our house. The kitchen the day before had been a hive of excitement with cateresses bustling about at their jobs. Now it had become quiet, the wedding was over. The night before we had been like birds in a cage without a private niche anywhere in the house. But now, take your pick-every room was empty and drained of life. I found myself automatically wandering to the piano, but it was gone as was every- thing in the house. Slowly I climbed the stairs, stopping at the place where Centie had thrown her bouquet. I picked up a trampled piece of flower and a few grains of rice from the step and then finished climbing. This pair of memories I put under the loose tile in the bathroom, which, on a special occasion, I once had autographed. Now I only allow myself to lift it about once a year. Here I again came to the dark bedroom where the wedding dress still lay in a forgotten lump. An empty, lifeless, lump-just as the house and I felt after the wedding. DEBBIE DONNELLY, Form V LITERARY THE FLAME sl