Low Key

n the spirit of being random, I've placed several words into a hat and will now draw on one.  Those topic were collected weeks ago from the people in my life.  I was keeping those folds in an envelope as a make-shift emergency kit just in case.  Sometimes worry on the "what" clouds my mind on Thursday morning.  Well, here it goes...
 
May I have a drum roll please?   "The winner is "low key," now what do you make of that?  Low key.
 
In photography low key simply means in the tonal range of gray to jet black.  I shot a picture once as an exercise in low key...my choice was that of an old projector.  I used a gray background with a few spotlights positioned just so.  
 
When writing how could I translate the definition of low key into a storyline?  Subtle?  Dark emotions?  Okay, well...in a writing "free-fall," let's see where this takes me...
 
Greta Marks stood for a moment of pause as she turned the key locking her house for the final time.  There was something in the mechanism clicking that seemed to be akin with her life in transition.  She had sold everything...her home, her car, all of her furniture...even the electric push mower that she deemed "old reliable."
 
All that she had left were a few mementos from a life well lived.  Matchbook covers, bottle caps and three photo albums were crammed inside her Samsonite with a "close with all your might" force. 
 
Her feet carried her from Maple Lane to Main Street through an adjoining path near the rail road tracks.  The day was sunny and the air rather crisp.  The season was leaning from autumn towards winter as the Midwestern chill was sure to invite worse.
 
There were several nods as she passed, all familiar faces, but their names seemed to land just out of reach.  Greta had been experiencing a decline in memory.  When she began to find her clothes in the dishwasher and the milk in the cereal cabinet she knew the time had come.
 
Her home sold quick for it had been maintained with vigilance.   Of course selling it for ten thousand below the appraisal was icing on the cake.  A young couple in search of a starter home nabbed the place in a record breaking two days after the initial listing.  "We'll take good care of it," Mary Sanders assured her as she clasped the hand of her life partner Hanna.  
 
As Greta lugged her bag onto the bus, she whispered, "well, that's that."  Many glances fell her way from the others as she reached the first available seat.  She was running away from home, running away from her past, running away from her declining memory.  "Soon," as the doctor said, "you will not recall much or recognize those in your life...it's all down hill from here."  It wasn't Alzheimer's, but instead a degenerative condition from an inoperable tumor.  If Greta wasn't mistaken, she had heard it all somewhere before.
 
The proceeds from the sale of her home and her belongings were placed into bank accounts for her children.  A gift for you...was written as-a-matter-of fact on the final note to her family.  The letters would arrive in a few short days as she hoped her words made logical sense.  
 
Greta kept enough to reach her final destination.   In fact, that was how she lived most of her life...with just enough to carry her through.  It was a practical mindset and one that did not impose much burden on those around her.
 
As the bus pulled away a smile pursed her lips.  She made a choice for the final chapter of her life story...she visualized what was before her as crossing the bridge towards a new beginning.
 
Greta slept for most of the trip and as the bus halted to a stop at the end of the line, she yawned and stretched.   "So, this is it..."  Lifting her bag from the carrier, she extended the handle to roll it along with her .  Clip, clop, clip, clop...her footsteps echoed through the stillness of the countryside.  The day had shifted to evening and the sunset was a brilliant shade of copper.  At the far end of the path, a tune from long ago filled the air.  A movement of hope transformed her glum to a more favorable disposition as the ticket taker extended his hand to offer her entry.
 
She chose a majestic white steed on the far corner of the merry-go-round.  The saddle was the most vibrant lavender that Greta had ever seen.  "Carry me off into the wild blue yonder...carry me away into the great ocean of possibilities..."  Greta knew the words from memory and the chant shifted her into a carnival state of mind.   Clowns, silliness, curiosity...the magic of youth...it was all simmering within.
 
It took some effort to swing her leg over the saddle but she managed.  In no time there was movement as her hand grasped the golden bar that rose up into the vortex of time.  Greta shifted from 78 to 7 in the blink of an eye.  Her children and grand children both great and precious dissolved into the dust from yesterday's life.  With every turn around the years fell into reverse.
 
She had been living this pattern for as long as she could remember.  Orphan child to orphan grandmother, orphan grandmother to orphan child.  The only ticket she ever needed was in her ability to imagine.   Tumor or not, ready or not, she simply did.  The end or a new beginning was all for Greta to decide.