Taking one last breath, she passed away. Looking around the small, sterile room all that remained of her life was hanging on the walls - pictures of family and friends, a painting done by her husband, a still life done by a Dutchman hundreds of years ago.
The picture of a bowl, some fruit, a bottle of wine. No human breath gracing it's canvas and yet somewhere in the background, out of site, the sense that a human hand had laid out this table. The colors muted and funereal, the air surrounding the objects dusty and muted.
But the fruit, ripe and asking to be eaten. The produce of some faraway farmers labor calling from the bowl for a disposition. If not eaten left to rot, fruit of life or forgotten fruit. Forbidden fruit perhaps, lush and beckoning, worth the price of the fall? A mere apple, the symbol of the first temptation. Could this red, ripe apple really be the tantalizing source of sinful preoccupation?
Then the other painting, done by her husband. A small house in a valley, surrounded by mountains, cows peacefully grazing. A pastoral scene executed with little skill. The colors bright but not real, the perspective slightly skewed, as if the valley has tilted slightly in the shadow of the mountains.
There is a sense in this valley of solitude and quiet. No humans in this picture either and yet again the sense that somewhere unseen is the hand of a farm family, carefully tending the cattle, a wisp of smoke from the chimney suggesting food and warmth necessary to survival. The great mountains behind looming protectively or perhaps ominously, snow on their peaks suggesting that soon this valley too will be shrouded in the color of winter.
Perhaps this is the land of Nod, the place East of Eden where, after that first bite of lucious apple, mankind was banished to. A place, not unfriendly in this picture but with it's shadows lurking. Different than Eden in it's insecurity, no guaranteed warmth in the shadow of sin.
The woman lying on the bed is still, no breath moves her chest. She has departed this room, a still life. Her last words an odd request considering that she spent her life in pious devotion to an unseen God she believed in and then at the moment that she stood on the threshold of infinity her only consideration was about tidying up.
The family pictures a tribute to her devotion, she bore these children both by choice and dictate. No consideration ever that there was not an obligation to do so, modern science not yet available to offer her another option. Her devotion not in question, she did the best she could and her offspring have done her proud. One wonders if they would have earned a place on this wall if this was not so. Would they have been banished to Nod if they had eaten the fruit, fallen to temptation and sin. An unanswered question. She was not a god but certainly her firm rule in the domain of her family was never questioned. She did pass judgement on the rightness and wrongness of their behavior and there was no question as to her right to do so.
The light in the room changes as the sun moves lower, a dusty grey pervades. A still life on the bed, a still life on the walls, a stillness that is so thick that no sound can invade it. The objects of a life reflected in the stillness. The fruit in the bowl, the small house, the cows, the children. And behind them the stories of her life. Her daughter stands and slowly begins to strip the walls. No one lives here anymore.
