Someone stole Stephen’s white dress shirt from the communal laundry room.
We liked to call that shirt his good white shirt. Now the shirt is gone, gone, gone.
Nothing else was taken, even though there were other, what we also call “good” shirts in that particular load of laundry. Blue ones, a purple one. One in cascading shapes like fish and birds.
I sometimes wonder about that shirt. The good white shirt.
Why just that shirt?
That shirt and nothing else?
In my more generous moments, I like to think that whomever took that shirt really needed it. For a job interview or custody hearing; a night out (someplace nice or at least, nicer) or a funeral (paired with a black jacket, or navy blue one depending on the shade).
In my not so generous moments, I like to remember how the sleeves of that shirt are just a little longer than you’d think, how the cut of it is specific and on most non-Stephen-shaped bodies would hang loosely and weird, like a strand of wilted fronds over an undersized fence or a full dead skin draped over a stranger’s lap.
Most times, I don’t think of that shirt at all. But then again…. it’s not like we are made of shirts (good shirts).
Why just that shirt?
That shirt and nothing else?
It’s a pickle, it is. Not the shirt, but the situation.
But you know what I mean.
besidealife 