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Apple Lee

Mrs. Norton

AP Language and Composition

21 May 2017

An Aid to the End

Eight, the arrival of newly wedded parents cradling their first-born child as I wait in the

kitchen, an apathetic stare above my apron. Ten, a child digs her feet and knees into the rug as

she crawls in my direction, leaving a residue of saliva coating my cabriole leg and dripping to

my tiny-scroll feet as she squirms away. Fourteen, my shadow casts its gaze on a figure in a

modest uniform bounding from my shadows surface area. Fifteen, pieces of a decorated mixture

of flour, shortening, eggs, sugar, and other ingredients cover me, while a child sits on my lap and

she pierces the walls with her thunderous voice, grabbing the attention of others. Twenty-five,

coffee stains my seat as it glides off a teenager, weary and motionless from the excruciating labor

constructed by her professors. Twenty-six, I wait with the others as incoming adults and teens

take their positions, celebrating and ingesting various foods while the words congratulations

and graduate fill the air. Twenty-eight, I impassively stare at a daughter, whom I have not seen

in several months, as she strolls into the kitchen and embraces her fathers open arms. Thirty,

precipitation descends on a window, casting shadows on me and the girl puffy eyes and

mucus exposed from her nostrils staring at a television displaying a vehicle rammed into

another, velvet liquid staining its interior. Thirty-one, I peek from the living room as the girl, now

wearing an elegant sheath dress, opens the door to a man and eventually departs from the silent
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yet eerie household. Thirty-two, unknown articles begin to appear around the house including an

extra pair of shoes by the doorway.

A year has passed. Deep cuts, similar to those of the man now lying still on the floor,

cover me. She remains standing behind me, as if I was still being used to protect her. She sobs,

contemplating her actions and shouting obscenities never before spoken from those lips. Three

hours pass. Across the room, which is now filled with the scent of alcohol, the girl remorsefully

gazes upon the fresh corpse, eventually shifting her gaze to the chandelier.

Silence is only present for seconds. The ceiling creaks. I now stand beneath the girl as she

sways from a cord attached to the chandelier. I feel no guilt for aiding in her path from the living

to the nonliving.

Why should I have such emotions?

I am only a thirty-three-year-old armchair.