The Wasted Years by Karin Gottshall

The wasted years were filled with movies, dreams about Venice, bread and raspberry jam. A hundred books that drifted by like laundry blown loose from the line, their pages unmarked and remembered only vaguely. I fell asleep reading. I listened to Verdi and whole afternoons were gone. I worked: boxing chocolate, sweeping floors, asking would you like whipped cream on that? There were dogs and cats: I looked into their faces. I thought if I’d been a painter I would have purpose now: I would paint saints, I would paint insects, I would paint the coffee shop filled with ghosts in the morning. I went to art supply stores and smelled the charcoal, bought myself thick blank books that were never filled. My shoes wore out and I found another pair just the same. My recipe for peace was a baked pear and my remedy for sorrow was a smoke. My friends called at regular intervals and we spoke about the past as though it were a puzzle we’d yet to solve. I lay in the sun and didn’t care what happened. Birdsong poured like sticky liquid from the trees and stuck one moment to the next, and I felt my life adhere and slide like syrup as I fell asleep under the thousand shades of green.