Little old Clarisse

An old leather bag, dressed like a hag, she is horrific to sight. Wafting the pale white smoke of her cigarette towards the center of the room, she only manages to sit crooked in her old wooden rocking chair. Horrified, pale, revolted are all feelings you may feel if you are in her immediate proximity. You smell smoke and a faint scent of old people’s perfume. She is putrid. Slowly withering away, eventually to dust, her youth is gone. But in a sense her form is almost admirable. Not by looks but rather in the experiences lived by her. She wears her pale rose colored dress that barely stretches to the floor that she wore many years ago. It is the memory of dancing with her husband in that dress. It's the only memory she can hold. She is a cup with a hole in the bottom, unable to retain any of her life's memories. Her mind is like a broken record, broken beyond repair and will live each day the same as the last. When her ancient hands don't hold a cigarette they move in a uniform pattern tying the knots between two strings as she knits a sweater. A sweater for her grandson is what she is creating. For a person from the portrait that protrudes from the wall in front of her. She lives and hopes. She wants to see her family on her last days before they all tick away like the hands on her grandfather clock.