Leslie Lindsay
They say it was peaceful;
That she was lying prone on her bed, her face turned slightly.
Her shoes tucked neatly on the floor.
On her nightstand,
A glass that once held water.
Bone dry.
In the drawer of her nightstand,
A vial of an unknown substance.
Another like it in the bathroom.
In the trashcan,
framed photographs of family members,
the glass cracked.
In the kitchen,
remnants of her last meal congealed on a plate.
Dust danced in the sun streaking through the tilted blinds.
A swarm of flies in various stages
of pupae buzzed throughout the house.
An overwhelming stench
of decay and stale cigarette smoke
and bodily fluids flooded the senses.
We’ve seen worse, the police said.
They were struck with the unnatural stillness
of the room,
the life long ago slipped out,
like ghouls through the crevices.
***
Leslie Lindsay is a mother, wife, and writer living in Chicagoland. Leslie is the award-winning author of Speaking of Apraxia (Woodbine House, 2012). Her work has been published in The Awakenings Review, Pithead Chapel, Common Ground Review, the Ruminate blog, Cleaver Magazine (both craft and CNF), The Nervous Breakdown, Manifest-Station, The Mighty, and forthcoming in Brave Voices Literary Magazine. Leslie is at work on a memoir about her mentally ill interior decorator mother and eventual suicide. She reviews books widely and interviews authors weekly, www.leslielindsay.com. Leslie is a former child/adolescent psychiatric R.N. at the Mayo Clinic.