interior without violin case
sean.
somewhere in this room, i am dying
I think it is dawn because the sky outside the window is a lighter shade of dark blue and the buildings are blue with distinct black outlines. There is a bridge that has stairs, but I can't see that there is no water beneath it. The walls in here are dark save for a painting that hangs off canvas and a few squares of canvas that hang unfinished above my bed.
the chair
The chair is woven in a traditional pattern. The contoured slats are reminiscent of the early 19th century. If I had another chair, I might place it beside the chair I have to make a love seat. Or I might place them facing each other in case two people wanted to have a conversation. Or I might place them back-to-back if two people didn't want to have a conversation. I once thought of such things. I would have liked another chair, but I couldn't afford one. I'm supposed to have two chairs in my room. Dying in my chair, I wouldn't be uncomfortable, but I've placed a canvas that I'm painting on it and my painting would be destroyed. There is no violin case on my chair.
the bamboo rug on the floor
I didn't consider the rug much. I didn't think about how it would look where I would lay it. I knew that not many people would walk on it because barely one person could fit in this room. I remember thinking that I wanted something neutral to place beneath a chair that I would use as an easel to place canvasses on. Wool is rich. Nylon takes on different personalities and dyes well. But I have a bamboo rug. When it rains and I forget to close my window my bamboo rug gets wet. I try not to spill paint on my rug. My rug anchors the open space in my room, which isn't very large. Part of my chair and most of my footrest, which is a plastic crate that I've painted light brown to match my chair, and which I use to sit on when I paint, rest on my bamboo rug. There isn't much room to stretch my body on the bamboo rug.
the curtain hanging on the window
I'd like to tell you that my curtain adds color and texture to my room, but it doesn't. It's a yellowish-brown color without any patterns. Sometimes I don't want people looking into my room, even though I live on the fourth floor but think I should live on the second floor. I can cover my window with the curtain. I've thought about blinds or shades, but then I wouldn't get enough light in and I need to have enough light to make part of the wall a little lighter than the rest of the wall. The curtain hangs down to the floor. I don't know what would happen if I was dying on the floor with my back against the curtain. I would probably knock over the table that sits in front of my window. Maybe I would pull the curtain as I fell over one last time. Maybe the fallen curtain would cover my body.
beneath the clock
Clocks are something people are always looking at. For this reason, I don't have a clock in my room.
on the floor beside the bed
One of the reasons I live here is because of the floor. It took me years to find a room with this type of floor. I think it is unstained wood, very dark brown, laid in a herringbone pattern. I imagine it to be Brazilian or Spanish. I've covered part of the floor with the bamboo rug, but the floor can still be seen and walked on along the window and beside my bed. If it were not for what I see outside my window, the floor would be my favorite part of this room. Still, I might be somewhat obscured by the chair and footrest that sit partially on the bamboo rug. If I'm bleeding and I'm not sure that I am, I wouldn't want my blood to go missing in the creases of such a dark place. My body would cover most of the floor beside the bed and also hide part of the red blanket with white flowers.
the table by the window
The table is an antique table with four legs. I'd like to say it is all white, but the legs are really a bluish gray and the top of the table is yellow. I usually have a tray there with a glass of water on it. I think I still do. Or I should. The table is tall and graceful and rises to the height of half the window, which is large and starts only a foot or so from the floor. The surface of the table has become distressed by time. There would be no space beneath such a thing to languish.
the bed against the wall beneath three unfinished paintings
The bed frame is made of flimsy wood that has been surprisingly easy to care for and the blanket is red with white flowers, which are not flowers but white circles. Nobody would know if I were losing blood on this blanket, unless the white flowers turned red. Sometimes I think the bed is leaning because when I lie on it I feel like I am sitting on a chair on an abandoned veranda that leans over a bustling street. Streets bustle, especially along the quay of Saint-Michel. The bed is where there isn't a naked woman resting on her side with her hands behind her head. That is where I should be dying. But I don't know.
sean. ©2003
