The sourness
George stares at his reflection in the mirror. His face isn’t “so much a face as the expression of predicament.” Here is what it has “done to itself, here’s the mess it has somehow managed to get itself into, during its fifty-eight years.” All of that is expressed in “terms of a dull harassed stare, a coarsened nose, a mouth dragged down by the corners as if at the sourness of his own toxin, cheeks sagging from their anchors of muscle, a throat hanging limp.” The man “has a harassed look of a desperately tired swimmer.” This imagery evokes a feeling of great fatigue, George is tired both emotionally and physically.
A little kingdom of two
George’s house is “tightly planned,” so he often “feels protected by its smallness.” And now imagine two people “living together day after day, year after year, in this small space.” Imagine them “standing elbow to elbow cooking at the same small stove, squeezing past each other on the narrow stairs.” Imagine two people “shaving in front of the same small bathroom mirror, constantly jogging, jostling, bumping each other bodies by mistake or on purpose, sensually, aggressively, awkwardly, impatiently, in rage or in love.” This imagery evokes a feeling of emptiness and sadness, for that house used to be home for two people and now it is only for one.
Changes
Everything changes and a quiet street George and Jim’s house stands on changes too. The small “old schoolhouse became a group of big new airy buildings.” The shabby market “on the ocean front was enlarged into a super-.” Two signs “were posted.” One of them “told you not to eat the watercress which grew along the bed of the creek” and the other sign “those sinister black silhouettes on a yellow ground” said “children at play.” The imagery evokes a feeling of nostalgia.
