Diary of a Geriatric Scarlet: November 8, 2050

La Calavera Catrina

A wealthy industrialist built our West Village home in 1908. He manufactured hats for ladies and gentlemen until his premature death on Black Friday. An alcove I have claimed as my office may have been his storage cubby for felt or flowers or lace. But I have made it my own.

I covered the walls with iridescent purple and silver fleur de lis. I draped a creamy silk around the doorframe. My desk is a solid slab of oak, supported by immense iron legs and clawed feet. My chair features antique green leather and rolls smoothly across wide wooden floor planks.

I light candles and relish the muffled silence that has gathered and settled into the room, ghostly and elegant and billowing. Stillness and dust motes and sloughing skin eventually knit together into the veil that separates the living from the dead, the veil that is said to thin sheer on Dia de los Muertos. I like to drape this veil about my shoulders and relish the warm breath and light touch of moments past.

Above my desk I have hung an original José Guadalupe Posada etching. La Calavera Catrina gazes down upon me, her eyes vacuous and searching. She reminds me of what it is to live and die in the eyes of beholders.