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franklin williamouse escaped indoors after a wild of bees chased after him.
"whooo! did you see how hot it was outside, ma? you could poach an egg on the pavement."
franklin mussed out his hair like there were bats tousled inside, and flakes of dust and detritus flushed into the air, illuminated for a brief moment by the voyeuristic sunlight lurking past the shades through the window next to the front door.
"take off your shoes! they're covered in filth!" his mother cried at the sight of her child. franklin threw one ruddy boot after the other onto the mat next to the front door and darted upstairs, tripping halfway up.
ms. williamouse's shoulders rose above her head as she leaned into the sink that housed the dirty dishes. sweat dripped down her nose onto her yellow apron, somewhat ochre these days. she sighed a willow tree and muttered this way or that about why her life hadn't come to fruition as she imagined.
"a widow at such a young age." sunlight dipped under the top of the windowsill and imposed its way into the kitchen. it cast a beam of particles in the air that drifted and rested on her, only to fly right away or become invisible in the beam's unilluminating absence. upstairs, franklin romped around his bedroom, chasing with his wide eyes the bees that ran him indoors after a spell. he bustled from one window to the next as the one-act play of bees ensued.
ms. williamouse cast her gaze to the ground beside her, glancing peripherally at her grandmother, mrs. williamouse. she was still. her lucid blue eyes only listened, now. more than four score and seven years ago she was born with a slightly doughnut complexion and, even as a woman, garnered physical similarities to abraham lincoln in his later days. in her youth she resembled something of a slightly less feminine lincoln. she was an unfortunate looking woman, from what she'd been told by her peers. ms. williamouse sighed a steam engine and went back to scrubbing the dishes, which would be recycled for dinner.
"it's not right," as the food wouldn't clear off the plate. "it's not fair for my own sister to have been widowed at such a young age by her husband." she placed the unclean dish on a towel, and sank forward back into her shoulders. "i don't know how to help her."
mrs. williamouse's hands stacked like paper on top of one another. her mouth, closed like a clamshell, was bulbous and puckered inward with roughly the same grisly formation, somewhat beautiful in its unabashed nature.
"i don't know what to say to help her," ms. williamouse offered to no one. "i don't know what to do. nana, i don't know what you want me to do with you!"
franklin had quieted and moved to the top of the stairs, peeking from behind the lathed wooden beams. his mother didn't notice him, because she doesn't notice what she doesn't expect to see. she turned now toward her grandmother. the sinking of her shoulders had transfered itself to her face.
"i should give her my happiness, but it died with franklin. i should give you my home to stay in, but i can't take care of you in either one of our states. i don't know how i can help anyone with all of these grievances upon me! i don't know what to do!" her voice quivered to the frequency of her shivering skin; the sun burned through the kitchen window onto her back and the bow tie of her yellow apron. franklin watched.
mrs. williamouse, with two or three slow twitches of her facial muscles, turned her head toward her granddaughter. she squinted into the light, slowly and with an efficient effort.
"sunshine, happiness may be well and good for the body," her eyes almost closed shut now, "but it's grief that develops the powers of the mind." she reversed her slow twitches and averted her gaze back to empty space. ms. williamouse stared at her grandmother for a moment, her eyes wide as the drying dinner plates. she had more dishes to clean than had been cleaned at that point, and saw that franklin's shoes had left spatters of dried mud and leaves on the wooden floor next to the front door. she pulled the white drape past the window in front of her and returned to scrubbing. the plates dried a little more slowly in the shade.
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