Stagnation

"There's something about change that shakes me to my bones."

The frail woman shivers and tucks herself into her shawl. Her rocking chair slowly teeters; it could have been from last century or the one before. Like the lady in it, age is hard to determine, and the only certainty is everything in this house is old.

They sit together on the screened porch. Around them, white paint chips, flakes, and fades, but the haint blue ceiling is vibrant and fresh. Several two by four floorboards are yellow and unpainted, replaced recently by grandchildren or friendly neighbors.

Her chair has never known the business end of a paintbrush. It has a shine only decades of use can leave on the armrests; natural cedar color peeks around her housecoat and lap blanket.

"You've been her a long time, ma'am?" The man is an hourly temp employee from the Census Bureau. He is from the next county over, but he's never been to this little house along the marshes of Savannah.

"All my life, boy." She says this without the bite the words themselves imply. To her, every man is a boy; she remembers when radio was the entertainment for a household and Sears & Roebuck sold mail order homes.

"Does anyone live with you?"

She pauses her rocking and looks over at her guest. Her eyes are sharpened points in a nest of crow's feet, and she considers her words. "Live? No. Stay? Always."

"Come again?"

"Change ain't the only thing that scares me, boy. Staying the same, bein' still, goin' stagnant. Them that won't change; they scare me more."

"I don't understand, ma'am."

"One day I hope to move on. I've seen what happens to them that stay." She looks up at her blue ceiling and shivers in a way that has nothing to do with temperature.

"So I should mark you down as the only resident of this household?"

"You do your paperwork how you need to, son. I reckon it's true enough I'm the only one alive in the house."

The census man finishes his sweet tea, wishes the lady a good day, and pretends not to notice shadows dance across his path through live oaks back to his car.