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Sand in the wind (IV)

             The sun was starting to disappear behind the horizon by the time he had finished chopping the entire pile of firewood. It wasn't that late, but Dave was exhausted and he went straight to bed.

             He spent the next day sanding, varnishing and painting the back facade of the house, which was built of solid wood. The next day, he cleared the ground between the house and the forest, removing all the stones and weeds. On the third day he called the doctor. “Dave, do not forget to come and see me soon. We still have to talk about the funeral matters, and you will probably need some time to make all the arrangements. I know you don't feel like thinking about it at this moment, but we are running out of time. These trivialities, these apparently silly little things, will be important later”. “Yes, thanks doctor”.

             It was early in the morning. It was rainining, all the clouds from the previous days having morphed into ice cold liquid. After replacing the receiver, Dave looked out of the window. The sheets of rain falling down was so dense that he could hardly make out any images outside. Today he wouldn't be able to work outside. Worried, but energetic, he went to the kitchen to have a drink of water.

             As he filled his glass, he noticed all the objects that Sara used to use for baking, carefully stacked in the sideboard she had inherited from her mother. The sideboard was a piece of orientally inspired furniture, painted black with gold engraving, and didn't match the rest of the kitchen. Dave shifted his gaze and took a sip of water. But after taking his last sip he put the glass down near the tap and again his attention was distracted by the saucepans, kettle, baking pan and rolling pin... He went downstairs to the cellar again. There, completely covered in dust, he found the boxes they had used during their move a couple of years ago... when Dave had convinced Sara to leave the city and come to live at the other side of the forest, near the ocean.

             Three days later he finished packing everything that had been owned by Sara, or which she had bought home. He worked quickly, concentrating on swiftly moving his hands in the process. It hadn't stopped raining for a second. When it would finally stop, he would go to the city to donate everything to charity. On the first day, he had dismantled Sara's favorite furniture, and threw covers over all the furniture, piece by piece. Starting with the old sideboard - it took him a long time, considering that it was an antique. Then, he took apart the table in the dinning room, the bookcases, the bedside lamp, and a tiny chest of drawers. When he had finished, it was still early, but because it was such a gloomy day... he went straight back to bed. The next morning and evening, he packed all the decorative objects that Sara had kept around the house, starting with those that had been on the furniture he had packed the day before. Cutlery, books, decorative pieces, gifts, pictures, the big vase with dried flowers... After that, he moved on to the frames and mirrors, which required a more careful hand. He went to bed early again, thinking about getting up before the sunrise the next day... to have enough time to plack everything into the van and drive to the city.

             In fact, the only thing that remained to be packed on the last day were Sara's clothes. But he realised he needed more time than he had thought: it was easy to pack the linen that she had so carefully picked out, but it was a bit more tricky to sort through all the clothes in her wardrobe. The problem wasn't that Sara had too many clothes, but rather that he had clumsy hands and struggled to fold the feminine clothes. He had serious difficulties when it came to packing the dresses... always beautiful to his eyes, but the dresses simply wouldn't be folded into the box. There was Sara's favorite dress, the red one with the thin straps and the long silky skirt... the one she used to wear for special occasions.  But by evening, even her shoes had been pakced. It was still raining as hard as before, so he just placed the boxes near the door and went to bed.