15, House of Memory Lane

A tale of emotions in the descriptive foray of an old man's apartment.

Pa Katherine stepped into his house with a smile on his face. The two grocery bags were balanced on both his arms as he expertly guided the wooden door to a close with his left leg. He looked quite aplomb with his bifocal glasses hung on the bridge of his nose. He was grey-haired and seventy-two year old, but he could still carry his own groceries like he was twenty.

 

He walked into the house that had been his for the past forty-five years and felt an overwhelming sense of nostalgia. He stood transfixed to the grey-toned textile floor that covered the expanse of the entire house. His eyes moved from one corner of the room to the other, taking in every inch of it; like the broken handle of the wooden door, which creaked eerily whenever it was pushed open. His eyes fell on the Louvre windows covered with layered dust �"too much he reckoned with a smirk. The walls were painted green �"oil paint�" with some part of it peeled off due to the cracked wall, which made fault lines to run through from top to bottom like the mapping of a river. Green was an unusual color; but it gave the house an unusual, yet effulgent appearance.

 

He moved from the door and through the living room, expertly managing to drop his car keys on the reading desk behind the three sitter couch. The desk had a HP white desktop computer on top of it, with a black keyboard besides the CPU. His elbow brushed against the top of the dusty CPU and he noticed the stain on his checkered shirt. He shook his head, ignoring it and heading for the dinner table a few meters away. Gently, he placed both bags of groceries on the table and stretched out a bit to the relaxing crack of his back.

 

He stared around about the dining room and sighed. The dinner table was a rectangle, round at the edges, made of mahogany wood, which was almost twice the age of the house, and it was surrounded by six chairs �"two at the round edges. It had a polished surface, which on a closer look gave it an awkward blend of shades. Some parts of the table looked darker than others, thanks to the innumerable number of times he had had to apply a tint of polish, in order to keep its appearance ever new. 

 

He turned away from the dinner table with an ebullient smile on his face; he walked towards a dark opening and felt for the left side of the wall with his fingers. He seemed to have found what he was looking for and smiled when he flicked the light switch on and the dark opening was illuminated by a yellow bulb to an open hallway. He walked down the hallway and took a left turn and climbed up the stairs carefully, getting to the summit almost out of breath and taking a moment to rest with his hands on his waist. At the top he turned right and walked straight at the open door of his bedroom.

 

Again he felt for the side of the wall by the door post on his right and flicked a switch to illuminate a spacious and simple looking room. There was a bed covered in clean white sheets with three fluffy looking pillows on it. On the left side of the bed was a night stand and on the right a small dresser with an open book that was turned over with its spine cover facing up. An inch away from the book was a picture. Pa Katherine noticed the picture from where he stood and his face broke into a ruminative smile. He walked quietly towards the dresser and picked up the picture, tracing his forefinger on the smiling face of his late wife.

 

He turned and walked to the window, pushing the green flowery cotton a little to the side as he stared out of it. It was their home �"his and his late wife. It was old and dusty and was supposed to be handed down to their daughter Katherine, but she was like her mother, enthused about creating her own home �"her own family; her own memories. Pa Katherine knew the time was soon to come when he would have to let go. But he was also certain that in that time, it would have to be for the right price. Good thing his son-in-law was a Real Estate Broker, he reckoned.

 

Author's Note

This was born out of an assignment given during a creative writing course I took. We were challenged to show ideas but in things. In other words, use things to convey a character's emotion explicitly going into their heads.

Reviews

[magensby]

Quite descriptive at every turn and at one point with all the feeling of the wall I thought that he was blind but then realized that he wouldn't need to wear glasses if he was blind.