|
By river Date: 2007 Dec 17 Comment on this Work [[2007.12.17.14.05.8894]] |
| He walks up the narrow wooden staircase and into the dust and the darkness above. Fumbling for and finally pulling the white string with the loop tied at the base, he floods the attic with incandescent light. The attic has served as a storage place for over one hundred years, long before he moved into this house...a place for forgotten things and for things which people have tried to forget. Chests and crates from unknown families have accumulated here over the century in a familiar organised clutter. Some of the boxes are open; these are filled with dust-covered black and white photographs, leather-bound books, and letters yellowed with age. Perhaps someday an historian will discover this incautiously preserved archive, but he has never performed more than a cursory inspection of the personal effects here, somehow preserving the privacy of the house's former occupants. The closed boxes he has never opened. Except for one. He walks past the wooden shelves and the boxes and the crates to the opposite side of the attic. This corner he has claimed for his own purposes and his own memories. A small table built by hand perhaps 80 years ago fits neatly against the two walls. The table is covered in a sheet of plastic, and although he is careful as he lifts it up, the air becomes inundated with a year's accumulation of dust. Here, too, are books; these are mostly 1950's science fiction and old college notebooks, arranged neatly in size order. He traces the tops of the books gently with one hand, as if by his touch he is reading again these short stories and novels of old. How long will these remain after I am gone? Will they be read and treasured again? He decides that he will never put them in a box. Looking at the spines of the books which face him he is unsurprised yet satisfied that they seem to be in the same order as they were the last time he was here. He is tempted to take one of the books down with him, to immerse himself once again in a time when rockets were made out of dreams and the promise of space seemed so much nearer, but he does not. He knows why he has come here, and stalling by examining these books has become a sort of ritual. He replaces the grey plastic covering over his collection and kneels down before the table. He pauses. Why do I do this? Is it for me? For her? These questions haunt him along with all the others, all of them having in common the simple fact that there is no answer. On some level he knows that this is the case, but feels that he would not be true to himself or to someone else if he did not at least ask them. He closes his eyes for a moment before taking a deep breath. He reaches underneath the table and retrieves the reason for his coming. The box is wrapped in a woolen blanket out of place because of its bright colours and relative cleanliness. He undresses the box, folds the blanket on the floor beside him, and looks at this thing which has brought him here so many times. This box isn't so much a box as it is a plastic bin. He can see through its curved clear lid a distorted image of what lies below: envelopes, drawings, photographs. A virgin candle. The bin is worn and the lid slightly cracked. He uses it simply because this is where he has always kept this part of his past. There is no mandate that temples must be beautiful. He removes the lid and lays it gently on the soft woolen blanket. Reaching into the bin, he lifts up a photograph. He holds it from the edges and with great care, unwilling to contribute to the paper's inevitable decline. The picture is of her, before she cut her hair. Her face is half-concealed demurely and she is looking towards the camera, mischievous and more than vaguely seductive. Sophomore. He picks out another photograph at random. She is sitting shoeless on a large rock at the base of a waterfall tall enough that the top cannot be seen. She looks so happy, beautiful...and young. He selects a third picture. It is of both of them at the base of the same waterfall, barefoot and on the same large rock, loosely hugging each other in the way that friends are supposed to do. He stares. The day we decided we secretly loved each other, but neither of us said anything for months. Could that have made a difference, if we only had the courage? He replaces the photographs into their paper envelope and gazes at the letters which form the next layer. He brushes them with his fingers in the same way he examined the books on the table above, reading each letter by recollection. These letters are different: they contain no rockets and no dreams, only memories. The books are of the future, the letters.... He pulls one out that he knows he has not opened in four years, and reads from a part of the letter at random: I just wish that I could tell you everything about me so that you could decide now whether to cut and run or stay. I don't want what happened to my parents to happen to us. I wish you were here so we could talk for hours and I could fall asleep in your arms. I miss you so much.He has seen so much more in these letters as the years have passed. If only I had read these like this the first time... Although he knows all of these letters, the dates have ceased to have any meaning for him. The date is clearly printed in the upper right hand corner of the unlined stationary, but he cannot see it. There is a small card underneath the letter he has just read which bears the only date in this box which holds any significance for him: April 16th, 1995. He folds the letter back into its envelope and chooses another: Well, I just got out of church. I was practically crying. I think it's because I haven't been taking my drugs lately. That makes me so angry! How long will I have to be on those things? I wish I could go home right now. I miss you so much. I'll write more later. I love you.He cannot determine if she had too little faith in him or if it was he who was lacking. He knows that neither is the case, but he chooses one or both in the various explanations he forms at the times when he decides he needs to do so. An oversized greeting card: Sorry this card is so 70's. The words were right, though. I don't know where I would be without you. I love you so much. I really mean it when I say we'll always be together. P.S. I hope we spend 50 more Valentine's days together.How many did we spend after that...one? Were we together? There are a few letters here that were written to him not by her, but by his family and his friends, written to him in April, 1995: Your own good common sense told you to break off the romantic relationship. Yet, you were still kind to her and caring. TRUST YOURSELF, TRUST YOUR PROCESS, AND TRUST YOUR GOD. You had nothing to do with her final decision--Nothing? I'm nothing? So the entire event is completely meaningless? She had no reason at all? But how can I blame you, when I haven't told you--anybody--what happened that night in April.... He kneels helplessly before his precious box, allowing the memories and the wonderings and the imperfect images in his mind to flood over him and possess him. He turns away slightly so that the tears falling from his face do not land in the box and perhaps tarnish a piece of his past. How I've wronged you.... Eventually, the tears stop, and he is left with the slight headache that comes after such times. Deciding that his pilgrimage and penance are complete, he returns the letters and the photographs to the bin, replaces the cover, and lovingly cradles the plastic in the blanket. You were right. We will always be together. Perhaps you have left me, but I will never leave you...I promise.... A noise prompts him to turn around. His wife is at the top of the staircase. They look at each other in silence. He returns the plastic box to its place beneath the table and turns to face her. She blinks, waiting patiently for an answer to her unasked question. "I'll be all right," he whispers. She holds out an understanding hand to him and leads him down the steps, leaving behind the dust and the pain and a small part of himself given willingly in offering, for it is far better than the alternative. Have I ever told her? He does not remember if he has or not, but he knows that it doesn't really matter. She knows. They walk out the front door into a bright and glorious and warm New England Easter morning to celebrate their daughter's wedding day. |