Keeping the Curtains Close
An Early Scene …
Every morning, Libby opened the curtains just enough to let the light in.
Not wide. Not fully. Just a careful gap, like she was negotiating with the day rather than greeting it. The neighbours joked that she lived in permanent half-light, but Libby liked it that way. Too much brightness felt like a requirement she wasn’t ready to make.
No one here talked much about her longevity.
They talked about gardens, bread, weather, and who needed help this week. The old men still walked to the square every afternoon. The old women argued over tomatoes. Nobody retired from living.
Researchers came with clipboards and careful shoes. They asked Libby her age. She shrugged. “Old enough,” she said. They asked her secret. She pointed to the window.
“I don’t open the curtains all at once.”
They laughed, wrote things down: movement, purpose, community, plants, sunlight. But Libby meant something else.
One morning, her granddaughter came to stay. She flung the curtains wide, flooding the room with light.
“Gran,” she said, “you’re not afraid of the dark, are you?”